Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessments of the potential merits of making dentists salaried through allowing integrated care boards to buy practices.

There are already contracts held by National Health Service trusts for Community Dental Services with salaried dentists. From 1 April 2023, commissioning responsibility for primary care dentistry has been delegated to integrated care boards across England and it is now for them to assess how to best meet the needs of local populations.

We will be announcing further contract reform shortly which will include action to improve recruitment and retention of NHS dentists, and the Government is also committed to publishing an NHS workforce plan which will cover dentists and other dental professionals.