Vital Signs: Dentistry access

Briefing · Parliament

MPs and peers press ministers on dental contract reform as access crisis deepens across England

1. 01A Backbench Business debate on NHS dentistry on 15 June 2026 drew contributions from members across all parties, with Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil) moving a motion regretting that nearly 14 million people were unable to access NHS dentistry in England in 2025 and calling on the Government to set out a clear timetable for fundamental contract reform. Sam Rushworth (Labour, Bishop Auckland) argued in the same debate that £1.5 billion a year would be enough to fix NHS dentistry and pressed for proper funding alongside contract reform, while Gregory Stafford (Conservative, Farnham and Bordon) and Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat, Honiton and Sidmouth) highlighted the south-west as the worst-affected region, with fewer than one in three adults in the region having seen a dentist in the previous two years.
2. 02Minister Stephen Kinnock (Labour, Aberafan Maesteg) repeatedly cited a reduction in the NHS dentistry underspend from £392 million to around £36 million and said the Government was on track to deliver 2.5 million additional courses of treatment compared with the period before the general election, but acknowledged at the Access to NHS Dental Services session on 14 July 2026 that 'we still have a long way to go to get NHS dentistry back on its feet.' He told the West Sussex Westminster Hall debate on 16 June that a public consultation on long-term dental contract reform would be launched 'soon', and repeated that commitment in the NHS Dentistry backbench debate and at Health Bill committee stage.
3. 03Opposition and crossbench members questioned the pace of reform throughout the period. John Milne (Liberal Democrat, Horsham), speaking in the West Sussex Westminster Hall debate on 16 June, said dentists had been told a consultation would come the previous year, then before summer, and warned the Government risked making 'no meaningful reforms to dentistry within this Parliament.' Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester) and Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat, Mid Sussex) described constituents unable to find a single NHS practice accepting patients and said the British Dental Association had identified the 2006 contract as a major driver of dentists moving to the private sector. Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat, Ely and East Cambridgeshire) told the NHS Dentistry debate that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough had a 24% vacancy rate for NHS general dentists.
4. 04At Health Bill committee sittings on 25 June and 16 July 2026, Liberal Democrat new clause 52 proposed that the Secretary of State establish within six months a scheme to end dental deserts, defined as local authority areas with fewer than ten active dental practices per 100,000 people, and guarantee emergency access, free check-ups for children and other priority groups, and dental appointments before cancer treatment. Karin Smyth (Labour, Bristol South) resisted the clause as unnecessary, pointing to existing reforms and the Government's commitment to contract reform by the end of the Parliament, while Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat, North Shropshire) and Gregory Stafford (Conservative, Farnham and Bordon) supported it, the latter noting there was not a single dentist in his constituency taking on adult or child NHS patients.
5. 05The scale of the problem was raised across a range of other contexts during the period. Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall) used the Medical Services (Rural Areas) debate on 1 July to call attention to a £1.2 million dentistry underspend handed back by Cornwall ICB, a concern echoed by Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole) in the NHS Dentistry debate regarding a £6 million removal from what she described as a supposedly ringfenced dentistry budget in Dorset. Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat) told a Lords debate on healthcare services on 25 June that four in ten children had not seen an NHS dentist in over a year and that tooth decay remained one of the most common reasons for hospital admissions among young children.