Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Prime Minister of 8 May 2024 in response to a question from the hon. Member for Weston Super Mare, which the 500 dental practices referred to are; and how many of those practices were registering NHS patients on 8 May 2024.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients and as of 8 April 2024, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients, compared to the end of January 2024. The Find a Dentist website allows people to see which practices have said they are accepting new patients, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist
No estimates are currently available on the number of new patients seen by dental practices since the New Patient Premium scheme was introduced, but we are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once this is available.
Oral Evidence May. 14 2024
Inquiry: Proposals for backbench debatesFound: 2024-05-14 16:15:00+01:00 Oral Evidence
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Kingswood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her Department’s polices of recent trends in levels of (a) children, (b) women and (c) people unable to access NHS dental services in Kingswood constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients and since the end of January, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients.
The Dentistry Recovery plan also sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines, and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth. The plan will deploy mobile dental teams into schools to provide advice and deliver preventative treatments to more than 165,000 children.
A new patient premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients, and a new marketing campaign will help everyone who needs an NHS dentist in finding one. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable. We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress, once available. Annual dental statistics, including the number of adults and children who have seen an NHS dentist since 2015, are available at the following link:
Oral Evidence May. 09 2024
Inquiry: Food, Diet and ObesityFound: Food Standards Agency Oral Evidence
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number of children unable to access NHS dentistry in England; and whether she has set a target date by which all children in England will be able to access an NHS dentist.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. The Dentistry Recovery plan also sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. As part of this plan, our 'Smile for Life' initiative includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines, and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth. The plan will deploy mobile dental teams into schools to provide advice and deliver preventative treatments to more than 165,000 children. Data on the number of children who have been seen by a National Health Service dentist in the last 12 months is available at the following link:
Data is also available on the number of adults who have tried to get an NHS dentist appointment in the last 24 months, and whether they were or were not successful. This data is available at the following link:
Mentions:
1: Todd, Maree (SNP - Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) quality and delivery of mental health services for all, in addition to the core funding that health - Speech Link
2: Todd, Maree (SNP - Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) We are working closely with national health service health boards and local authorities to improve services - Speech Link
3: Whitham, Elena (SNP - Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) what the Scottish Government can do to assess that health board and other health boards. - Speech Link
4: Gulhane, Sandesh (Con - Glasgow) of May.Will the minister commit to tackling this latest crisis in NHS dentistry, or will the SNP let - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: O'Kane, Paul (Lab - West Scotland) To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with Renfrewshire health and social care partnership. - Speech Link
2: Todd, Maree (SNP - Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) As the member knows, the 2024-25 national health service recovery, health and social care budget contains - Speech Link
3: McCall, Roz (Con - Mid Scotland and Fife) only around half of them have actually seen an NHS dentist in the past two years, which has widened oral - Speech Link
Oral Evidence Apr. 29 2024
Inquiry: Food, Diet and ObesityFound: Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition Oral Evidence
Written Evidence Apr. 24 2024
Inquiry: NHS leadership, performance and patient safetyFound: NHL0098 - NHS leadership, performance and patient safety British Dental Association Written Evidence
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the 4% increase in NHS dental charges on access to dental care for low-income (a) people and (b) families.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service dental charges provide an important contribution to pressurised NHS budgets. It is particularly important to maintain this contribution at sustainable levels, whilst we work to improve NHS dentistry. In setting the charges, we strive to strike a balance between the contribution the charges represent to the overall NHS budget, and the cost to charge-paying patients, recognising the primary policy objectives of improving oral health and guarding against creating financial barriers in accessing NHS dentistry.
We consider that the latest 4% uplift is proportionate, as it remains below the Consumer Prices Index, and represents a £1 increase to a Band 1 course of treatment. To ensure everyone has access to dentistry when needed, there are a range of exemptions to NHS dental patient charges for those who need the most financial support.
The Department has produced an Impact Assessment with respect to the 4% uplift of NHS dental charges for patients in England from April 2024, which is available from the following link:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2024/48/pdfs/ukia_20240048_en.pdf
In line with our Public Sector Equality duty, the Department has also considered the impact of the change on equality, and on those from disadvantaged groups.