Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average turnaround time is for applications to the National Dental Performers List since that service has been taken over by Capita.

NHS England holds the contract with Capita for the administration of Primary Care Support Services, including the National Dental Performers List. NHS England has informed us that that it does not hold information on the average turnaround time for applications to join the National Dental Performers List. There is an expectation that applications should take 12 weeks to process but for some applications it can take longer. The Performers List process checks that applicants have the correct evidence to ensure that safeguards are in place for the protection of the public.

Service standards set in the Capita contract are a matter for NHS England as the contract holder. NHS England advises the contract contains a range of remedies to incentivise and address performance. These include the application of financial service credits where agreed levels of performance are not achieved and rectification processes to affect improvement in service performance where this falls below expected levels.