At Business of the House on April 20, 2023, the MP for Bath questioned the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, on NHS dentistry data.
Earlier in the month, the British Dental Association (BDA) responded to a Liberal Democrats survey exposing gaps in the data. The association’s research shows “hundreds of dentists are doing the equivalent of a single NHS check-up a year.”
Eddie Crouch, BDA chair, said, “The prime minister keeps boasting of 500 ‘new’ dentists in the NHS. The reality is we have 500 doing a single check-up a year.
“We need a reality check from government, together with honesty, ambition and investment.”
The BDA’s statements have attracted the attention of Wera Hobhouse MP, who raised the issue during business questions.
Wera said, “The prime minister has boasted that 500 new dentists are practising in the NHS because of government reforms. In reality, over 500 dentists are doing just one NHS check-up a year. The British Dental Association has described official data on NHS dentistry as a work of pure fiction; it also says that the government have never attempted to collect data on the workload of NHS dentists or how much time they spend on private and NHS patients. Can we have a statement from the relevant minister to explain why the government are not collecting that important data in the middle of an NHS dentistry crisis?”
Penny Mordaunt, minister for Portsmouth North, responded, “The secretary of state is collecting more data and using it in a way we had not done previously. As I announced in the business statement, on Thursday April 27 we will have a general debate, thanks to the Backbench Business Committee, on progress on reforms to NHS dentistry.”
Penny added, “We have brought forward new money, and that contract reforms and many other things are underway, not just to deal with the immediate situation, which has arisen in part because of treatment backlogs, but to make the right provision and have the right number of dental schools around the country to ensure a pipeline and a strong workforce in future.”