Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what risk assessment he has carried out on impacts of changes to Government guidance for infection control in dental surgeries.

No specific assessment has been made. The guidance states that dental settings should undertake risk assessments in relation to infection control. Based on this assessment, dental settings should implement effective controls to reduce the spread of respiratory pathogens. The national infection prevention and control respiratory guidance for health and care settings is regularly updated to reflect the current evidence base. The latest version of ‘COVID-19: infection prevention and control dental appendix’ was published in November 2021.