Government ditches ‘700k appointments’ manifesto pledge
The government has admitted that a manifesto pledge was badly designed and is on course to be missed, a year after telling integrated care boards to deliver it.
Labour’s 2024 manifesto said it “will tackle the immediate [dental] crisis with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments”. A year ago, integrated care boards were told to commission their share of the “additional urgent appointments” to take place during 2025-26.
But this week, NHS England wrote to ICBs saying: “The government has now confirmed that the 700,000 commitment will be broadened with immediate effect to all dental appointments measured through courses of treatment.”
Several sector sources confirmed to HSJ that the original target was effectively being scrapped.
Speaking at a conference last week, the former NHSE chief dental officer Sara Hurley said: “It’s lovely that [the government] are going to be able to fiddle with, sorry, amend the definition to what the new appointment offering is.”
There has been widespread outcry in recent years because in many areas it is extremely difficult to get NHS dental appointments.
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Source: HSJ, 2 March 2026