Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2022 to Question 13119 on Dental Services: North East, if he will make an assessment of whether dentists at NHS Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group have capacity to take on additional patients as on 29 June 2022; and if he will make an estimate of the number of dentists per capita there were in the NHS Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group in the 2010-11 financial year.

We have no plans to make such an assessment. National Health Service regional teams are responsible for assessing local capacity and commissioning the appropriate NHS dental services. The Department works with NHS England to monitor the delivery of commissioned levels of care in England.