PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Accident and Emergency Departments: Dental Services (4 November 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) attendances at accident and emergency departments and (b) emergency admissions there were for dentistry-related issues in each of the last 10 years.

Asked by:
Rupert Lowe (Restore Britain)

The following table shows how many attendances to accident and emergency departments there were for dentistry-related issues, specifically those with a first diagnosis code of dental abscess or dental caries, for each of the last four years:

Year	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
Attendances	60,330	69,859	67,310	73,088

Source: the data is published on NHS Digital, and is available at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-accident--emergency-activity/2023-24

Note: due to changes in recording methods, data from the last ten years is not available.

In addition, the following table shows the number of emergency admissions for dentistry-related issues, specifically the number if Finished Admission Episodes for dental-related issues, for each of the last ten years:

Year	Admissions
2014/15	16,279
2015/16	16,749
2016/17	17,285
2017/18	18,744
2018/19	20,543
2019/20	22,129
2020/21	17,540
2021/22	19,340
2022/23	19,979
2023/24	23,109

Source: the data is published on NHS Digital, and is available at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2023-24

Answered by:
Stephen Kinnock (Labour)
11 November 2024