Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department gives to dentists on the currency of their NHS Choices profiles.

NHS Digital has been working with NHS England and other partner organisations to improve the information available to the public on dentistry on NHS Choices. The first improvements were made earlier this month. These included action to encourage practices to regularly update their profiles and, in particular, information on whether the practice is taking on new patients, which now has a mandatory 90 day review cycle. If this information is not updated or verified as still correct within a 90 day period, it will be temporarily removed from the site. NHS Digital is developing a guidance document to dentists following these changes. This will be made available by early summer to all dental practices in England holding an National Health Service contract.