Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of (a) the number and proportion of dental practices in (i) the South East Region and (ii) the Brighton and Hove CCG area that are having problems delivering current NHS contractual requirements and (b) the staffing capacity of dental practices to join the new scheme to secure additional NHS appointments for vulnerable groups suffering from oral pain, disease and infection; what steps he will take to enable dental practices to join that scheme; and if he will make a statement.

No specific assessment has been made. Overall delivery of National Health Service activity and individual contract activity are monitored by NHS England and NHS Improvement. A reconciliation process is completed at the end of the financial year to determine final delivery levels for each contract. The NHS Business Services Authority also undertakes mid-year performance reviews on individual contracts to understand where contractors may not meet contracted activity levels by the end of the financial year. Information on these reviews is not held centrally.

Where a contractor may not meet its contracted activity due to exceptional circumstances, they should contact their commissioner at the first opportunity. Guidance on exceptional circumstances has been extended during the pandemic, particularly in the last quarter of 2021/22 to address COVID-19 related staff absences. NHS regional teams are working with existing NHS dental contractors to commission activity funded by the additional £50 million investment. More staffing resource has been allocated to commissioning and engaged with Local Dental Networks to raise the profile of the scheme. This activity is additional to a practice’s current NHS activity and does not need to be delivered outside of normal practice hours. The scheme has been developed to be attractive to dentists, with those involved in the scheme to be paid more than a third in addition to their normal sessional fee.