§ Mr. LlwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many people aged 15 to 24 years were28W registered with NHS dentists in (a) 1984, (b) 1989, (c) 1992 and (d) 1994 and (e) 1995; and if he will make a statement; [27020]
(2) how many people were registered with NHS dentists in (a) 1985, (b) 1989, (c) 1993 and (d) 1995; and if he will make a statement. [26960]
§ Mr. MaloneThe available information is shown in the table.
Number of patients registered with General Dental Service dentists: registrations at 31 December, 1992 to 1995; all patients and patients age 15 to 24 England 1992 1993 1994 1995 All patients 28,847,520 29,547,398 28,911,403 27,776,901 Patients aged 15 to 17 1,245,617 1,288,420 1,311,236 1,345,928 Patients aged 18 to 24 2,820,031 2,793,830 2,639,862 2,419,082 Patients aged 15 to 24 4,065,648 4,082,250 3,951,098 3,765,010 Notes:
These data are taken from the Dental Practice Board's quarterly counts of registrations qualifying for payment. This is the only source of registration data which is broken down by age. Children's registrations have been recorded before the effect of the lapses in registrations which occur at the end of each year.
Central formal registration was introduced in October 1990; figures for December 1984, 1985, and 1989 are not available.
The Dental Practice Board improved its systems for detecting duplicate registrations in 1994 and some 3.5 million duplicate registrations have been removed since then. This has had a significant effect on the number registered.
Source:
Dental Practice Board—quarterly count of active registrations.