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 the adequacy of staffing levels in Community Dental Services.

NHS England introduced the annual Dental Workforce Survey to improve understanding of the National Health Service dental workforce. NHS England has published this survey, and further information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/dental-workforce/

This includes a subset of data for Community Dental Services (CDS). The latest published workforce returns, a copy of which is attached, shows that the workforce, as of December 2024, provided responses for 54 out of the 68 CDS contractors. These returns showed that there were 317.2 full time equivalent dentists reported to be working within CDS. Dentists’ vacancy rate within CDS was lower than within high street providers, at 13.4% compared to a high street rate of 17%.