Reforms to NHS Dentistry – in the House of Commons at 2:37 pm on 27th April 2023.

Peter Aldous Conservative, Waveney

 Finally, at the heart of any health strategy must be prevention. Such an approach will help spare people from hours of agony and ultimately impose less of a burden on the public purse. I will briefly outline three possible strands to intervention. First, the Government must press ahead with plans to fluoridate the water supply. All the evidence is that that will bring significant results. Secondly, we must come up with a strategy for promoting better oral healthcare for children. In 2021, with support from local councillors, Lowestoft Rising provided free toothbrushes and toothpaste to the under-sevens. The take-up was high and the feedback was extremely positive, and it recommended that such products should be exempted from VAT. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to promote that policy with the Treasury......

Neil O'Brien The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care  4:35 pm, 27th April 2023

..............Mrs Hodgson listed some of the problems that are firing our ambition to fundamentally change the system. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney made a series of important points, and I am grateful for his contribution not only today and in previous debates but outside the Chamber. He has many thoughtful observations to make about ringfencing, changing the UDA system, fluoridation and so on, and all those ideas are flowing into our work. Dame Diana Johnson was the first in this debate, but not the last, to emphasise the importance of where dentists do their training and foundation training to getting more dentists into under-served places, which we are looking at.

Neil O'Brien The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care  4:35 pm, 27th April 2023

........Hon. Members raised the matter of prevention. We have already started the process of expanding fluoridation across the entirety of the north-east, which would—subject to consultation—encompass about 1.6 million more people. We will be launching that consultation this year in order to provide the benefits of fluoridation to a large new area for the first time since the 1960s.