Claire Curtis-Thomas (Crosby, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) pursuant to the answer of 26 October 2009, Official Report, column 101W, on dental services, if he will place in the Library a copy of the notes seen by officials of his Department in relation to the visits by the chief dental officer or his representatives to (a) maxillofacial and (b) dental hospitals which were subsequently used in the production of the report by the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board on oral and maxillofacial surgery;

(2) pursuant to the answer of 26 October 2009, Official Report, column 101W, on dental services, on what date each unit was visited; for what reasons each unit was selected for a visit; who the representatives of the review body were at each visit; what the role of each such representative was during the visit; in what format the data was collected in each case; and in what format the data was passed to the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board secretariat.

Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; Brentford & Isleworth, Labour)

The dates of the visits were Royal Lancaster Infirmary 4 July 2007, Great Western hospital Swindon 25 July 2007, Royal Sussex Brighton 6 November 2007, Sunderland Royal hospital 20 November 2007, Royal London 21 December 2007, Southern General Glasgow 14 January 2008. The units were selected to enable the working group to meet with service providers in departments of differing composition and serving different population needs. The original programme of visits was extended at the suggestion of working group members and contributors, to ensure that the working group saw an appropriate balance of type and size of unit.

All visits were made by selected members of the working group and secretariat whose names are given on page 3 of the report. There was no formal programme, the intention was to give the staff of the units the opportunity to present to the working group what they saw to be relevant to the review. The terms of the review did not extend to formal reporting on the visits and any notes taken are not in an appropriate format for placing in the Library. The overall findings, as summarised in the report, were that there should be no change to the current statutory requirement for those training in oral maxillofacial surgery to obtain primary qualifications in both medicine and dentistry but that there should be a separate review of the specialty of oral surgery. This review is now underway.