Speeches

Imran Hussain – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Imran Hussain on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total budget is for dental care in England in each of the next five years; and how much of that budget is allocated to dental care education in (a) schools and (b) the community.

David Mowat

NHS England has a legal duty to commission primary care dental services to meet local need and therefore does not have a specified dental budget. Local teams commission dentistry based on the local oral health needs assessment undertaken in partnership with local authorities, which identifies the level of dental need for a particular community.

Health Education England is responsible for funding dental education. Information on funding for dental education is only available for 2016/17 and can be found in the table below.

Training Category

2016/17
Total Cost
£

Undergraduate Dental training

122,296,360

Postgraduate Dental – Foundation Level

80,998,539

Postgraduate Dental – Specialist Level

14,328,506

Dental Nurses

8,455,506

Dental Technicians

1,495,340

Dental Hygienists

8,110,376

Dental Therapists

7,454,032

Total

243,138,660