Dental Services: East of England
(asked on 19th March 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support NHS dentists to reduce waiting lists by Local Dental Committee area in the East of England.
Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend and there are no centrally held national waiting lists for NHS primary dental care. Some dental practices may operate local waiting list arrangements.
NHS dentists are required to keep their the NHS.UK website profiles up to date so that patients can find a dentist more easily. This includes information on whether they are accepting new patients. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice, they should contact NHS 111.
The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. 1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April 2024 to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election.
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 greatest need first, incentivising treatment for those with urgent or more complex care needs. Further information is available at the following link: