Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to reduce the amount of time it takes to commission Units of Dental Activity.

We have implemented actions to better utilise Units of Dental Activities (UDAs) already commissioned. Our reforms of the National Health Service dental system announced in July 2022 included allowing NHS dentists to deliver up to 110% of their contracted UDAs and enabling NHS commissioners to mandate contract rebasing for repeatedly underperforming NHS dental contracts.

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. ICBs will have local processes in place to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.