Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 13 September 2023 to Question 198352 on Dental Services: Cornwall, how funding recovered from NHS dentists may be spent by his Department.

NHS England has provided guidance for integrated care boards (ICBs) that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources re-directed to improve National Health Service dental access in the first instance. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence has been issued to ICBs. NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance, which provides more detail, is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2023-24-revenue-finance-and-contracting-guidance/