Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information he holds on the proportion of dental patients who receive (a) NHS and (b) private treatment.

Information is only collected by the National Health Service on dental courses of treatment that include NHS care. No information is therefore held on patients who receive only private treatment from a dentist or dentists who only provide private treatment.

Under the current NHS dental system there is no registration. Patients may attend any practice providing NHS care. Information is held on the number of individual patients who saw an NHS dentist in, for adults, the last 24 months and for children the last 12 month period. 22.1 million adults were seen by dentist in the 24-month period ending 31 December 2018 and 7 million children were seen by a dentist in the 12-month period ending 31 December 2018.