Recommendation 9

The threadbare provision of NHS funded dental care is a further example of a failure to provide preventative or protective routine care leading to more acute health problems.24 NHS England, rather than ICSs, remains responsible for most of NHS dentistry provision in England.25 In some parts of the country it is impossible to register with a dentist offering NHS treatment and there is huge concern about lack of access. We raised concerns about children’s dental health seriously deteriorating to the extent that they required hospital treatment.26 NHS England told us it has begun implementing the first steps in a wider programme of dental reform that it announced in July 2022; that these represented the first major change to the profession in fifteen years; and that the changes had been widely welcomed. These reforms included changing the national dental contract to recognise and provide greater payment for more complex work; allowing dental therapists to accept NHS patients for treatment to free up dentists to do more urgent or complex work; and increasing the amount of activity high-performing practices could undertake by 10%.27 NHS England is also, as part of its work with Health Education England on the NHS workforce plan, looking at ways to improve the pipeline into NHS dentistry, to make it a more attractive place for new dentists to come to do work and to stay.28