Conclusion 2

The dental recovery plan was never going to deliver its headline ambition that everyone who needs to see an NHS dentist would be able to, and has failed even to deliver the hoped for 1.5 million additional courses of treatment in 2024–25. The plan’s initial promise to expand access in 2024–25 so that everyone who needed to see a dentist would be able to was never aligned to its actual target of an additional 1.5 million courses of treatment. Even this target would have left overall delivery still around 2.6 million courses of treatment short of pre–pandemic levels. The dental recovery plan has failed to deliver the promised additional courses of treatment, the number of new patients seen is actually falling, and slow or no progress has been made on other initiatives. At least £88 million has already been spent on the new patient premium, but 3% fewer new patients have been seen since it was launched in March 2024. Given the public money spent on initiatives that have yielded little or negative results, it is important that NHSE and DHSC produce a transparent evaluation of what government spent on the plan and why it has not had the desired impact on access to NHS dentistry. recommendation DHSC and NHSE must publish their evaluation of the dental recovery plan and what was spent on it. They should write to the Committee as soon as is practical to confirm their final analysis of the plan’s performance in 2024–25, including details of: • how many additional treatments the plan as a whole delivered; • for each of the four main initiatives a breakdown of what they individually achieved; • the final amount spent on each initiative; and • how far the performance in the 2024–25 plan can be continued into 2025–26