Dental Services: South Yorkshire

Jeff Ennis
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent estimate he has made of the number of (a) adults and (b) children without access to NHS dental services in (i) Barnsley and (ii) Doncaster in each of the last five years.

Ann Keen
The information requested is not collected centrally. It is for primary care trusts (PCTs) to assess local need and demand for national health service dental services and commission the appropriate services.

All 10 strategic health authorities have set themselves the aim of providing access to NHS dentistry for all who seek it by March 2011 at the latest. We are supporting PCTs to meet this aim with extra resources—an 11 per cent. uplift in our dental funding allocations for 2008-09, and a further 8.5 per cent. uplift in total funds for 2009-10, which takes the total available for dental allocations to £2,257 million (net of patient charge income).

We have also set up an expanded national dental access programme, headed by Dr. Mike Warburton an experienced clinician and manager, to support managers and clinicians to rapidly expand services where needed.

“NHS dental service in England: An independent review led by Professor Jimmy Steele”, published on 22 June recommends a series of further actions to support access and quality. Piloting of the recommendations will begin from this autumn. This report has already been placed in the Library and is also available at:

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_101137