Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, what her planned timetable is for the deployment of mobile dental teams in schools; and what criteria she plans to use to determine their locations.

Our plan to recover and reform the National Health Service will ensure that children can access preventative care. We will be deploying dental teams to bring preventative dental services such as fluoride varnish directly to children. Dental teams will visit state primary schools in the most need, with higher levels of child tooth decay, and provide fluoride varnish treatments and advice. Starting later this year, we will deploy mobile dental teams into schools in under-served areas, to provide advice and deliver preventative fluoride varnish treatments to more than 165,000 children, strengthening their teeth and preventing tooth decay.