Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled Patients to benefit from improved access to dental appointments, published on 21 February 2026, what steps he is taking to help ensure that high street dentists offer the additional urgent appointments.

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards (ICBs) have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. We will ensure a continued urgent care safety net by requiring, from April 2026, high street dentists to deliver 8.2% of their total contract value as urgent or unscheduled care.

We are broadening the scope of the commitment to deliver additional appointments so that they can be used for more patients, not just those who meet the clinical criteria for “urgent” care. Additionally, we are increasing the urgent care payment to dentists from an average of £42 to £75 so that reimbursement better incentivises dentists to deliver the care patients need.

ICBs already have capacity in place for urgent dental care and can now consider where capacity could be more effectively used, ahead of the April 2026 reforms that will embed urgent care requirements into all high‑street dental contracts. NHS England has written to ICBs with further information on the commissioning of the additional dental appointments.