Dental Services: Staffordshire
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to increase the level of access to NHS dentists by people in a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and (b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
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, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and Staffordshire, this is the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB. ICBs have been asked to start making extra urgent dental appointments available from April 2025. The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB is expected to deliver 16,190 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.
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