Lord Colwyn writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question to ministers about access to NHS dentistry.
As a dentist myself, I know how important it is that individuals are able to access dental care on a regular basis. Oral health is an indicator of overall health and dentists are the health professionals best placed to spot many health problems, including mouth cancer.
Although a number of people in the UK opt to receive their dental care privately, most still seek NHS provision.
As a political issue, access became increasingly prominent during the course of the last decade, with the former prime minister's pledge to ensure access for all.
The current government has actually presided over a decline in the number of people able to access NHS dental care – in the aftermath of the new dental contract introduced in 2006 an additional one million people lost access.
However, NHS Information Centre statistics show the decline has been arrested and reversed, and that the number of people able to receive care from an NHS dentist is now approaching what it was at before the new contract was introduced.
Challenges remain though, as the government itself acknowledges. The pledge of access for all, which has not been fulfilled, has been renewed and is included in the NHS Operating Framework.
Responsibility for achieving it, by April 2011, rests with primary care trusts. But central government is not divested of its responsibilities. The recommendations of Professor Steele's review of dentistry must be piloted and a system based on quality outcomes developed. Primary care trusts must be properly supported as they attempt to commission care that meets local needs.
The government must offer an honest assessment of the problem that recognises the work still to be done.
Prior to the implementation of the new dental contract, health minister Rosie Winterton said that approximately two million people who wanted NHS dentistry were unable to get it.
Can the government provide a revised estimate of the shortfall in access? If not, how can it judge the likelihood of PCTs achieving the target they have been set?
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd