Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of standardising (a) salaries and (b) access to NHS pensions for dental nurses employed by private dentists and those dentists with an NHS contract in line with those dental nurses employed directly by the NHS.

The National Health Service contracts with independent dental providers to deliver NHS dental treatment in primary care settings. As a result, pay and conditions are agreed between staff and the practice holding an NHS contract. This provides practices with the flexibility to recruit to meet local needs. The NHS Pension Scheme is an occupational pension scheme which can be accessed by staff engaged primarily in the delivery of NHS services.