Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of NHS dentistry provision in (a) Stockton and (b) the Tees Valley.

Dental Statistics - England 2023/24, published by the NHS Business Services Authority on 22 August 2024, is available at the following link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202324

The data for the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), which includes Stockton and the Tees Valley, shows that 45% of adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in the previous 24 months up to June 2024, compared to 40% in England, and that 58% of children were seen by an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months up to June 2024, compared to 56% in England.

We will deliver 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments per year, and ICBs have been making extra appointments available from 1 April 2025. The North East and North Cumbria ICB is expected to deliver 57,559 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.

We are committed to reforming the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.