To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consideration she has given to the provision of additional funding to NHS dental practices to cover the cost of heat-sterilising handpieces between the treatment of each patient.

The Department reimburses in full to the profession, on an average basis, all dentists' national health service practice expenses. In 1987–88, 1988–89 and 1989–90 the health Departments, in their discussions with the profession in the dental rates study group (DRSG), explicitly recognised that dentists were likely to incur additional expenses for cross infection control and extra money was made available in those years. From 1990–91 onwards, any additional costs incurred from 1987–88 to 1989–90 are included in the baseline of dentists' practice expenses used by the DRSG to forecast dentists' future expenses and would have been reimbursed in the normal way.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what data are held by her Department in relation to the different sterilisation practices employed by NHS dental practitioners for the cleaning of dental handpieces and the number of dentists who use each technique.

This information is not available centrally.