Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to improve access to an NHS dentist for residents in a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and b) Staffordshire.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including National Health Service dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire constituency, this is the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB.

We have asked ICBs to commission extra urgent dental appointments to make sure that patients with urgent dental needs can get the treatment they require. ICBs have been making extra appointments available since April 2025.

ICBs are recruiting dentists through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As a first step, on 16 December we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on the quality and payment reforms to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms