Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it remains his Department's policy to introduce mobile dental vans in areas of need.

The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and to recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

The decision about whether to commission dental vans should be made locally by integrated care boards. Local areas know the needs of their population best and are best placed to make decisions about whether or how mobile dental vans can contribute to meeting the dental care needs of their population.