To ask the Minister of Health what consideration he has given to making dental check-ups free of charge; and for his assessment of the impact this would have on i) increasing attendance rates; (ii) increasing the diagnosis rate of head and neck cancers at an earlier stage; (iii) decreasing morbidity and the side effects of surgery related to these cancers; and (iv) saving his Department money in the long term by reducing the need for late-stage surgeries and treatments.

At this time there are no plans make dental check-ups free of charge as there is no conclusive evidence that charges are a barrier to people attending dental check-ups.

Approximately 63% of the Northern Ireland population are registered with a General Dental Practitioner (GDP) and approximately 50% of patients receiving General Dental Service (GDS) care are exempt from patient charges. There is a strong relationship between not being registered and living in areas of deprivation, therefore many of those who are not registered are likely to be entitled to free dental treatment but nevertheless do not attend.

Similarly, there is no strong research evidence illustrating that free dental check-ups would improve the likelihood of diagnosing more cases of oral cancer. Most patients who are ultimately diagnosed with an oral cancer in Northern Ireland are not referred to hospital by general dental practitioners.

The primary driver to improve the number of patients who are diagnosed early as opposed to late with oral cancer would be that survival chances are significantly increased as is quality of life post-treatment. It also follows that the overall cost of treatment is lower with earlier diagnosis, however I am not aware of any research into the effects of free dental check-ups on earlier diagnosis of oral cancer.

While GDPs will screen patients for oral cancer as part of an overall dental examination (opportunistic screening), independent researchers and the UK National Screening Committee have found that an oral cancer population screening programme would not be a cost-effective use of Health Service resources. This is because of the difficulty of detecting the condition at an early stage and because of the likely low screening uptake rates among those individuals who are at the highest risk of developing the condition. Therefore, at this moment in time, there are no plans to establish oral cancer screening arrangements over and above those already provided opportunistically by GDPs.