Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the new minimum rate for units of dental activity on NHS dentists.

The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler and fairer for patients and will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. We will further support dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity (UDA) rate to £28 this year, making National Health Service work more attractive and sustainable. This has meant that almost 1,000 contracts will see an uplift to their UDA rate this year, supporting them and making treatment of NHS patients more sustainable.

We have also developed guidance to support local commissioning by ICBs, including how they can consider addressing UDA rates locally to support better delivery of dental care for patients. I will report to the House on impact shortly.