Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in which areas of England has the Starting Well Core scheme been made available to NHS dental practices.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well Core initiative has been developed by NHS England to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. The initiative has been made available to all local National Health Service commissioning teams in England for local use. Decisions about whether or not to adopt the Starting Well Core initiatives is a local decision and based on local need.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) practices participating in and (b) children who have benefitted from the Starting Well scheme since its launch in spring 2018.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the interim evaluation of the Starting Well Scheme will be published.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of children under the age of five were seen by an NHS dentist in England in (a) 2016-17, (b) 2017-18 and (c) 2018-19.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The following table shows the number and proportion of children under the age of five seen by a National Health Service dentist in the last 12 months, in England, in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
End of year | Number of children 0-4 years old seen in the last 12 months | Total population of children 0-4 years old | Proportion of children 0-4 years old seen in the last 12 months |
March 2017 | 1,135,028 | 3,434,680 | 33.0% |
March 2018 | 1,159,889 | 3,429,046 | 33.8% |
For March 2019, data will be published in August 2019.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of dental practices who have participated in the Starting Well Core scheme since its launch.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure all local authorities in England take part in Public Health England’s Oral Health Survey of five-year-old children 2019.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
In England local authorities have the statutory duty to commission or undertake oral health surveys. Public Health England published a toolkit in 2016 to support local authorities to meet this responsibility and works locally with them to deliver the surveys. The toolkit is available at the following link:
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the administrative cost to the NHS Business Services Authority Loss Recovery Service of checking claims for free prescriptions.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
For the financial period 2017-18, the cost to the NHS Business Services Authority for the running of the full Prescription Exemption Checking Service which includes checking prescription form exemption declarations, issuing Penalty Charge Notices and managing associated customer contact, was £6.8 million.