Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help improve (a) recruitment and (b) retention of dentists.

As set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, we are going to increase dentistry training places by 40% so that there are over 1,100 places by 2031/32. To support this ambition, we will expand places 24% by 2028/29, taking the overall number that year to 1,000 places.

As the Workforce Plan sets out, the National Health Service and the Government will explore whether a tie-in would ensure that dentists spend a greater proportion of their time delivering NHS dental care.

We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan, to be published shortly, which will address how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care.