Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said 700,000 dental appointments will be delivered “as a matter of urgency” to address “dental deserts”.
Mr Streeting also confirmed the Government would continue with some aspects of the Tories’ dentistry recovery plans, but said he would be dropping the “gimmicks”.
Prior to the General Election, the Conservatives set out a £200 million dental recovery plan aimed at bolstering the NHS and providing 2.5 million more appointments.
Speaking during health questions on Tuesday, he told the Commons: “NHS dentistry is non-existent in huge parts of the country.
“There were aspects of the previous government’s dental recovery plan which we will stick with because they’re the right solutions. There are other gimmicks which we will not proceed with and we will come forward, as I’ve stated, with a serious plan to reform the dental contract.”
Labour MP Alice Macdonald described her constituency of Norwich North as a “dental desert” and called for a dental school to be established in the east of England, to train more dentists.
Mr Streeting branded Norwich North the “Sahara of dental deserts”, stating there were only 36 dentists per 100,000 residents, compared to the national average of 53.
Responding to Ms Macdonald, he added that he would be “delighted” to meet with her to discuss the University of East Anglia’s proposal further.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) asked Mr Streeting for a “timeline” for dental reform, adding: “When can we see change?”
Mr Streeting replied that the Government will be “making progress, talking to the BDA (British Dental Association), and working within the department and across the sector to get those 700,000 appointments up and running as a matter of urgency”.
Later in the session, Mr Streeting branded the Tories’ attempts to “laud” their plans for dental vans as “an absolute disgrace”.
This came in response to shadow health minister Saqib Bhatti, who pushed Mr Streeting to get dental vans on the road by autumn.
The former minister said: “We had agreed with NHS England that the first (dental) vans would be on the road by this autumn, and I know that this timescale was welcomed by colleagues across the House. Will (Mr Streeting) confirm that dental vans will be on the road by this autumn?”
Mr Streeting replied: “I couldn’t have picked a better example of the desperately low ceiling of ambition the previous government had than the fact that they laud, after 14 years, their triumph of dental vans roaming the country in the absence of actual dentists and dental surgeries.
“What an absolute disgrace.”
