To ask the Minister of Health what measures he is taking to ensure patients can access dental care, in light of a limited number of surgeries currently accepting NHS patients.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impact on capacity within GDS, with dentists currently completing around 59% of their pre-pandemic activity in Q4 2021/22. To ensure that this more limited capacity is targeted appropriately, my Department requires that dentists prioritise patients requiring emergency or urgent care. Practices have largely dealt with those patients experiencing such symptoms and many have been offering appointments for check-ups and routine treatment for many months.

Recent easing of Infection Prevention and Control procedures within all health care settings and the introduction of the Rebuilding Support Scheme (RSS) in April 2022 is expected to increase capacity within practices resulting in improved access. The HSCB are also currently scoping other avenues to increase the availability of appointments for non-registered patients. In the meantime, the Urgent Dental Care Centres continue to provide cover for patients with dental emergencies who cannot be seen in practice. Patient registration timeframes have also been extended since the beginning of the pandemic to ensure that nobody is unregistered for lack of access to their dentist.

The General Dental Services (GDS) Rebuilding Stakeholder Group has met 7 times and discussed issues such as patient access, care for unregistered patients, Infection Prevention and Control measures and financial support for dentists. Further meetings are scheduled for the coming months.

To help sustain GDS during this challenging time, my Department has provided £76m in financial support to independent General Dental Practitioners GDPs over the last 2 years. A similar level of investment has been committed for the first quarter of 2022/23 to further support dental practices, with dental fees being enhanced by 25%, as part of the RSS, to reflect the ongoing pandemic pressures practices are facing.

In addition, a £5m Revenue Grant Scheme was launched on 27 January 2022 for dental practices to support the cost of improving and increasing their delivery of General Dental Services. This funding is designed to improve patient safety, practice efficiency and improve the resilience of practices in order to mitigate against future transmission of aerosol based respiratory diseases, and other infectious diseases.