Speeches by Beales.

“It is obviously important to get the modelling right, based on previous modelling failures.”

“Thank you for that explanation. Reading between the lines, I think it is fair to say that the process for a new dental contract has not started yet.”

“You have talked about the need not to rush. I think that is true—we need to get this right—but what timescales are you working to regarding a new dental contract? Has the process started, and what do you envisage as the end date for an updated dental contract?”

“We are dancing about the issue; you bring it back to the attractiveness of private work, but is it not the unattractiveness of NHS work that is the fundamental issue? Cross-subsidy in primary care is not a new thing. Pharmacy and optometry colleagues would say the same—that, relatively, the value of their NHS work has …”

“They are, because they realise that their local system is not sustainable, so they are using their money to try and sustain it.”

“Time is tight, so my question is: what modelling informs the £28 rate, and what modelling are you doing to understand the actual costs of the dentistry? For both complex and general patients, what modelling have you done and will you do to inform what rates people actually need to earn to sustain NHS care?”

“That is not modelling related to the costs; that is modelling relating to what might drive more activity.”

“Are you committed—because, as you highlighted, you have not done that previously—to actually modelling what the costs of dentistry are in 2025 and going forward, looking at the actual costs of dentistry and not just incentives that might lead to more activity?”

“I am reading into that—maybe I am over-reading—that a significant process for a new contract has not started at pace yet. What would a timescale for a new contract be? I appreciate that we need to get it right and not rush it, but what would you envisage? I think we have all accepted that we need a new contract. That i…”

“Will you be engaging the BDA and industry players in that modelling?”

“I would just put it to you that perhaps it suggests something else to reflect on, if a parliamentary Committee and the BDA—the industry representative group—raises concerns about modelling, and yet quality assurance does not happen until an NAO Report a year later re-highlights the issue. That might be a learning point…”

“From the evidence we have heard, the Health Committee and the BDA did spot it, but were not listened to.”

“The Health and Social Care Committee, of which I was not a member at the time, is a respected Committee of this place. It heard the concerns about the modelling and raised them formally in its inquiry. It sounds as if those concerns were true. They were put to the Department and NHS England, but no action was taken. In…”

“Thank you, Chair. You did welcome me informally. Back in March last year, as my colleague has mentioned, the Health and Social Care Committee looked at dentistry. It became clear to the Committee at that point that there were concerns about the modelling. In its evidence, the BDA raised concerns about the modelling. Ba…”

“Yes, just briefly. I am guesting today on behalf of the Health and Social Care Committee.”

“So we have not started the process significantly yet.”

“That is not really my question. That is the previous point you made. Perhaps you can write to the Committee with what the options might be. My question was about a new contract. I appreciate that you are tinkering with the contract and doing other things.”

“How long do you envisage that taking for a significantly new contract?”

“The sense you have is that the framework is still the right model. It is still what should be pursued with those barriers.”

“Is that one of the reasons that adoption has been slow? Is it that busy commissioners commissioning a range of services do not know where to look for what good looks like? As we have heard before, there is such variation in what is provided. In some places—you have pointed to Somerset—there are services that are workin…”