Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report by Healthwatch Liverpool entitled The state of NHS dentistry in Liverpool, published on 18 November 2022, what recent discussions his Department has had with local stakeholders on improving access to dental care in Liverpool.

There have been no recent discussions. However, NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Liverpool. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Liverpool.

The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.