Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 5
5
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 38
Permanently apply ringfence to prevent diversion of NHS dental funding by ICBs
Recommendation
We welcome the fact that to try and address the underspend, NHS England is applying a ringfence for 2023/24, to ensure that no ICB can divert funding away from NHS dentistry. We recommend that this ringfence applies permanently, and NHS England puts in place transparent scrutiny to ensure compliance.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government partially accepts the recommendation, stating they need to build on existing contractual changes but do not commit to making the dental funding ringfence permanent. They are working on further reforms to the 2006 contract in discussion with the profession.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
38
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government · verbatim extract
Acknowledged
Accept The Department accepts this recommendation. NHS England have provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental allocations to be ringfenced in 2023/24, with any unused resources re-directed to improve NHS dental access in the first instance and not spent on other services. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence was issued to ICBs through NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance. To ensure compliance against this requirement, NHS England are meeting with and collecting monthly returns from all ICBs to establish current and planned spend against the ringfenced dental allocations budget. In response to the challenging financial position of the NHS, in November, NHS England confirmed that where ICBs had not spent all of their allocation on improving access to dentistry, ICBs would be able to retain any underspend and use this to balance their bottom line and any other pressures. ICBs will decide how to use any forecast underspend in line with this guidance. We are currently considering arrangements for 2024/25 and any opportunities to further strengthen oversight of funding that is used to deliver access to NHS dental care. We also agree with the Committee’s view that while access is a remaining challenge, we need to tackle underperformance by contractors to maintain the levels of care that have already been agreed. As part of the reforms announced in July 2022, we have introduced legislation to enable commissioners to address worsening access to NHS dental services for patients where this is due to persistently under-delivering contractors. In the first instance NHS England will encourage commissioners and contractors to work together to resolve underperformance against the contract at the mid-year review point or by voluntarily rebasing their contract. Where this is not possible, commissioners will be able to rebase contracts to the highest level of UDAs delivered over a three-year period and recommission unused activity to other providers. As a result of these changes, we expect patients to see an improvement to access over the longer term from the recommissioning of undelivered NHS dental care and a reduction in persistently under-delivering contracts. The NHS Dental Contract
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