AQW 15395/17-22

Ms Claire Sugden
Independent
East Londonderry

Tabled Date: 25/02/2021
Answered On Date: 31/03/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail (i) the top-up funding being made available for dentists in 2021/22; (ii) his plans for ensuring the security and sustainability of Health Service dental treatment in the next financial year, and long-term; and (iii) the number of dentist surgeries offering Health Service dental treatment for each of the last three years.

Answer:

To support the sustainability of practices throughout the pandemic the Department established the General Dental Services (GDS) Financial Support Scheme (FSS), which provides an additional payment to eligible General Dental Practitioners (GDPs) each month based on the average gross (including patient contribution) monthly Item Of Service (IoS) payments received by a GDP in 2019-20. There has been approximately £47m FSS payments made since April 2020.

The FSS has been continued until the end of June 2021 and support beyond June remains under consideration.

The number of general dental practices offering a Health Service treatment is published by the Business Service Organisation on an annual basis. Tables 1.2 and 1.3 in the Annual Dental Statistical tables provide the requested information and are available via the following link:

http://www.hscbusiness.hscni.net/services/3173.htm.