Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the estimate from the British Dental Association that only 700 of approximately 8000 NHS contract holders in England will benefit from the increase in payment per unit of dental activity.

On 7 February 2024, we published Our Plan to Recover and Reform NHS Dentistry. The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients and will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.

Units of dental activity (UDA) rates vary around the country but in recognition of the fact that where rates are lowest it is harder for dentists to sustain their National Health Service work, we announced in Our Plan to Recover and Reform NHS Dentistry that we will raise the minimum UDA value to £28. This will mean that almost 1,000 contracts will see an uplift to their UDA rate this year, supporting them and making treatment of NHS patients more sustainable. We have also developed guidance to support local commissioning by integrated care boards, including how they can consider addressing UDA rates locally to support better delivery of dental care for patients. The plan also includes a number of other commitments to make NHS dentistry more attractive and sustainable, including new patient payments and Golden Hellos.

We are developing further recommendations for dental contract reform to properly reflect the care needed by different patients, and to remunerate practices more fairly. We expect to develop options for consultation with the dental profession in advance of a further announcement later this year. Any changes would be phased in from 2025 onwards.