The Parliamentary Health Select Committee held an evidence session on NHS Dentistry this morning (09 July 2025) to hear evidence from:
- Dr Shiv Pabary: Chair of the General Dental Committee at British Dental Association
- William Pett: Head of Policy, Public Affairs & Research at Healthwatch England
- Thea Stein: Chief Executive at Nuffield Trust
- Dr Amanda Doyle OBE: National Director for Primary Care and Community Services at NHS England
- Stephen Kinnock MP: Minister of State for Care at Department of Health and Social Care
- Ed Scully: Director for Primary and Community Health Care at Department of Health and Social Care
- Dr Jason Wong MBE: Chief Dental Officer at Department of Health and social care & NHS England
The Committee heard that there was considerable appetite, and need for NHS Dental contract reform, and that nothing was off the table. The BDA was clear that this needed to happen within this Parliament, and not in 2035, but there was no confirmation of a timeframe from the Minister though there was a clear commitment to work closely with the profession on contract reform as soon as the current consultation on dentistry was over.
There was considerable scrutiny on the changes to Healthwatch, both at the national level and local level. With many concerns raised about the loss of accountability and independent scrutiny of services. In response to this the Minister suggested that the changes would increase scrutiny and democratic accountability.
A central theme was the drive to increase recalls to increase the overall number of appointments available. It was felt that the profession was already moving to extending recalls, but that more could be done to encourage closer adherence to NICE Guidelines. There was a discussion about effective prevention versus ineffective prevention, but also whether the focus on urgent dental care would in fact lead to more urgent dental care being required.
The Committee was very interested in the dental graduate tie-in, hearing that it would not apply for at least five years and would involve only a proportion of the graduate’s time. The details were still to be worked out and negotiated with the BDA, but the Committee questioned whether it would have any impact as the great majority of graduates continue to do some NHS dental care anyway after dental foundation training. The Minister confirmed that he had met with the GDC to ask them to detail how they were dealing with the backlog of Overseas Registration Exams which would have a considerable impact on workforce in the shorter term.
The meeting finished with a robust discussion over finance, underspend and the nature of the ringfence, with Amanda Doyle confirming that ICBs were to use any dental underspend for dentistry and that the contract values were ringfenced.
You can watch the full recording of the Committee Meeting on Parliament TV.
