Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of available dental appointments for NHS patients.

This information is not currently collected, however as part of the next phase of our dental system reform work we will be considering all parts of the system and how it operates, including which data is collected where and how it is used, to ensure that we have a reformed and improved system which will deliver better outcomes for patients. NHS Dentists are remunerated for dental activity not by appointment. We provided an extra £50 million for additional activity and patient appointments at the beginning of this year and from April NHS dentists have been asked to deliver at least 95% of contracted activity.