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Dental Services: Armed Forces

Asked by Adam DanceLiberal DemocratDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled Answered 22 June 2026UIN 10878

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with Ministerial colleagues to ensure military families have adequate access to NHS dentistry.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock

We are working to improve access to National Health Service dentistry, which will also benefit members of the Armed Forces community, including the families of those who serve and spend their careers defending and protecting us.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the most pressing issues that dentists and dental teams have been experiencing. These reforms will prioritise those with the greatest need, shifting care away from clinically unnecessary check-ups.

We are committed to fundamentally reforming the dental contract, with a focus on matching resources to need, improving access, promoting prevention, and rewarding dentists fairly, while enabling the whole dental team to work to the top of their capability.

We are also supporting more than 1,500 children in British military families overseas through our supervised toothbrushing programme.

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