Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to allow Integrated Care Boards to reallocate dental underspend in line with local patient needs.

From 1 April 2023 responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. NHS England has provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources re-directed to improve NHS 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/