PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Dental Services: Pregnancy (23 October 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of NHS dentistry for (a) pregnant women and (b) new mothers; and what steps he is taking to increase the availability of that treatment.

Asked by:
Alice Macdonald (Labour)

The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term and increase access to NHS dental care, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care, including dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Norwich North constituency, this is the NHS Norfolk and Waveney ICB.

Pregnant women and new mothers are entitled to free NHS dental care. The following table show the total number of Courses of Treatment delivered nationally to new mothers and pregnant women over the last five years:

Patient type	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
Expectant mother	304,536	104,659	204,229	215,528	211,935
Mother of child born in the year before treatment started	471,033	144,737	289,624	330,000	321,718

Source: data is published by the NHS Business Services Authority, and can be found at the following link: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202324

We do not hold data for each region.

Answered by:
Stephen Kinnock (Labour)
30 October 2024