Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to guidance for dentists on the requirement to have air circulation equipment during the covid-19 outbreak, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing support to dentists who need to purchase that equipment.

Dental practices have been able to open for face to face National Health Service care, including routine care, since 8 June. The guidance from NHS England and NHS Improvement to NHS contract holders was clear that the pace of the restart should be only as fast as possible compatible with maximizing safety for patients and dental staff.

Dental practices must follow Public Health England guidance on infection protection control procedures (IPC) and appropriate levels of personal protective equipment. IPC recommendations include minimizing risk of transmission during or following aerosol generating procedures. However, the guidance does not require dentists to buy equipment to force air changes. The guidance sets out the length of time a room needs to be rested between treatments and the circumstances where that time can be reduced by forcing air changes. It is for practices to consider whether they wish to reduce that time. For their NHS activity dentists are receiving their full funding during this restart period without any expectation that they deliver a given number of treatments. The requirement is that they are open to patients and deliver as much care as they safely can, given their individual surgery set ups. Where the dentistry provided is private not NHS any investment in equipment or practice is a matter for the dentist concerned.