Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the accessibility of regular NHS dental check-up appointments in Surrey Heath constituency.

We are aware of the challenges faced in accessing a National Health Service dentist, particularly in areas such as Surrey, and are taking steps to address this.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Surrey Heath constituency, this is the Surrey Heartlands 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. These extra appointments have been made available from April 2025.

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 quality and payment reforms to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with the greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on recall intervals state that a healthy adult with good oral health needs to see a dentist once every two years, and a child once every year. 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