§ 13. Charlotte Atkins (Staffordshire, Moorlands)What initiatives his Department is pursuing to increase the availability of NHS dentistry. [88250]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham)We have already taken action to improve the availability of NHS dentistry through the investing in dentistry and the personal dental services initiatives. We are currently considering options about how best to use available resources in the future to improve the availability of NHS dentistry further. As I said earlier, we shall publish a dental strategy later this year.
§ Charlotte AtkinsIs my hon. Friend aware that, when the Labour Government came to power, no NHS dentist in my constituency was accepting new NHS patients? Since then, new NHS dental practices have opened in Leek and Werrington, but more must be done if we are to safeguard the dental health of our population. I welcome the initiative on an NHS dental strategy, but will my hon. Friend assure me that new and innovative ways will be studied to spread access to NHS dentistry not only to inner-city areas but to rural constituencies such as mine?
§ Mr. DenhamMy hon. Friend is right. In north Staffordshire, eight investing in dentistry bids have been approved since the Government came to power, of which my hon. Friend mentioned two. They should give a further 23,000 patients in the area the opportunity to access NHS dental care.
My hon. Friend is also right to say that, in developing the dental strategy, we shall need to study a range of mechanisms to ensure that people can access NHS dentistry. I agree with my hon. Friend that the problem is not always greatest in inner-city areas, where the task will be to persuade more of the population to register with the dentists who are available. We will need to come up with proposals that fit a wide variety of circumstances across the country.
§ Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)I am sure that the Minister will know that there has been a large drop in the number of people registered with NHS dentists since the Government came to power. A dental strategy must be based on people having regular check-ups, which people are not having because they are not registered with NHS dentists. What is the Minister going to do about that?
§ Mr. DenhamThere was a drop in the number of registrations because the registration period was shortened. The people who did not re-register were those who did not visit their dentists regularly in that period. As I said earlier, the number of NHS dentists is greater than two years ago, as is the number of treatments carried out under NHS dentistry. However, we are not complacent: as I have acknowledged several times this afternoon, 818 access to NHS dentistry is unacceptably difficult in some parts of the country. We have taken many more measures to tackle that problem than the previous Government, but I am sure that we shall need to do more.