NHS Dentistry (Hansard, 18 September 2003)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)

Subject to the will of Parliament, the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill will give primary care trusts new duties for commissioning local National Health Service dental services. Primary care trusts will have a duty to secure the provision of primary dental services either through contracts with individual practices or by providing services themselves. With these new responsibilities, the £1.2 billion currently held centrally for funding dental services will pass to primary care trusts.

Until then, we will continue to work with the NHS and the dental profession to support NHS dentistry and to reform it to meet local needs. We are today announcing additional funding of £65.2 million to support change and help improve access, quality and choice for patients. The funding will be targeted at those primary care trusts where access is a real problem and will be on top of the £1.2 billion which is currently held centrally and which will in time go to primary care trusts.

The £65.2 million will be used as follows:

£35 million to enable primary care trusts to improve access, choice and quality for patients;

£30 million for information technology to integrate dentistry within the national information technology programme;

£200,000 to develop dental leadership skills within strategic health authorities and primary care trusts to support them with the dental change agenda.

This funding comes on top of the £9 million announced last month for the NHS support team that has been set up to work with those areas where it is hardest to find an NHS dentist and a further £1 million to help primary care trusts, local dental committees and dentists to prepare for the change in the way dental services are commissioned.

There are many examples of excellent NHS dental services and we want to reward NHS dentists and make practice in the NHS an attractive option. The programme of reform we are now embarked on will enable the NHS, dentists and patients to influence local services in the future.

As well as the changes flowing from the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill, we have also asked Harry Cayton, the director for patient experience and public involvement at the department, to undertake a review of patient charges for NHS dentistry. This review involves patient groups and other stakeholders and will be reporting to Ministers by April 2004.