Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the demographics of North Shropshire constituency; and what plans she has to take account of those demographics in the ICB budget for dentistry.

From 1 April 2023 the responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for having local processes in place to involve patient groups, to undertake oral health needs assessments to identify areas of need, and to determine the priorities for investment.

Our plan to recover and reform National Health Service dentistry will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.

Our plan sets out a number of actions to incentivise dentists to carry out NHS work. A new patient premium will support dentists to take on new patients, our Golden Hello incentives will encourage dentists into under-served areas, and we will raise the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable.