Dental Services (Hansard, 1 July 1999)

§ Audrey Wise
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to increase the availability of dental treatment on the NHS. [88604]

§ Mr. Denham
The Government have already taken action to improve the availability of National Health Service (NHS) dentistry through the Investing in Dentistry (IID) and Personal Dental Services (PDS) initiatives. The IID initiative, which ended in April, should give over 650,000 extra patients the opportunity of registering with an NHS dentist. The 15 PDS pilots which began in October 1998, and the 24 new proposals to be developed into pilots for this October, are designed to offer NHS patients a better, more accessible, reliable and higher quality dental service. The Government are now examining options on how best to use the resources available for further improving the availability of dentistry. A dental strategy will be published later this year.

§ Mrs. Brinton
To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will publish the NHS strategy for dentistry. [89080]

§ Mr. Denham
The Government's strategy on National Health Service dentistry will be published later this year.