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From House of Commons
Hansard 20th December 2005
Oral Questions to the Department of Health
Mr. Sadiq Khan (Tooting)
(Lab): If she will make a statement on NHS dentistry
provision in Tooting.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie
Winterton): Wandsworth
primary care trust, which covers Tooting, has 174 NHS
dentists and received £269,000 in access money. Patient
registrations in the area have increased by 2.8 per cent. in
the past year. The benefits of the new dental contracts will
be available to all practices in Tooting from April 2006.
Mr. Khan: I thank my hon. Friend for
her answer. In the context of the scaremongering and
selective amnesia that we have witnessed today and in recent
months, will she comment on the fact that last week I opened
a dental practice in my constituency—the 119, on Mitcham
lane—which has state-of-the-art equipment partly funded by
the PCT, fantastic dentists and staff and is able, willing
and keen to take on more NHS patients?
Ms Winterton: I am very glad that
my hon. Friend is taking an interest in dentistry in his
area and that a new practice has opened there. That is a
great tribute to the hard work of his local PCT and others
in ensuring proper provision. As I understand it, one
difficulty in his area is getting people to register, and
one of the new schemes that the PCT is examining is
concerned with getting more people on to the books. As he
says, there is absolutely no shortage of dentists in his
area. In a sense, the problem there is the opposite of that
faced by other areas: getting people on to the books.
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