PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Dental Services: Contracts (11 January 2023)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 24 January 2022 in the Adjournment debate on NHS Dentistry: Bristol and the South-west, Official Report column 826, what recent progress has been made on engaging with key stakeholders, including the British Dental Association, on reform of the dental contract.

Asked by:
Darren Jones (Labour)

NHS England and the Department worked closely with the British Dental Association (BDA) on the first phase of dental system reform. A set of improvements were negotiated on with the BDA and consulted on with a wider group of dental and patient stakeholder bodies, who approved of the improvements. These were set out in ‘Our plan for patients’, announced in September 2022, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to National Health Service dental care. This included improving the 2006 contract to ensure fairer remuneration for practices providing complex treatment and enabling dentists to make better use of dental teams to deliver NHS treatment. This package of changes was implemented through regulations that came into effect on 25 November 2022, in addition to directions and guidance published by NHS England. They will improve access to general dentistry and make the NHS contract more attractive and sustainable to dentists and their teams.

NHS England is holding discussions and consulting with BDA and the wider dental sector for additional reforms of the NHS Dental System, planned for 2023.

Answered by:
Neil O'Brien (Conservative)
18 January 2023