Cornwall Handed Back £1.2m of NHS Dental Money, MP Reveals

One North Cornwall resident had to travel to Nottinghamshire for routine dental treatment. A round trip of more than 500 miles, because they could not get the care they needed any closer to home.

That case was raised in Parliament yesterday by Ben Maguire, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, as he returned once again to Cornwall’s NHS dentistry crisis. And alongside the human cost, he pointed to a figure that has only just come to light. Cornwall’s Integrated Care Board underspent its dentistry budget by £1.2 million in 2024-25.

The underspend that went back to Whitehall

The £1.2 million figure was revealed last week through a Freedom of Information request sent by the MP. It shows that money set aside for dentistry in Cornwall went unspent in 2024-25, at a time when thousands of residents across the county remain unable to access an NHS dentist.

Ben has called for that funding to be urgently reinvested into dental services in Cornwall rather than handed back to central government.

“It is completely unacceptable that my constituents are being forced to travel hundreds of miles for routine NHS dental treatment while Cornwall’s health commissioners handed back £1.2 million that should have been spent on vital dentistry,” he said.

He set out the explanation he says he was given for the money going unused.

“Their excuse was that their chosen providers failed to deliver services and so they were forced to hand back the funding to Whitehall but today’s debate highlighted the example of Sussex ICB who redirected their underspend to urgent dental care programmes.”

What the MP is asking for

Ben is pushing for the unspent money to stay in Cornwall and go directly towards improving access to NHS dental care.

“With the scale of the crisis we face in Cornwall, every penny of that funding should be going towards improving access to NHS dental care,” he said. “I’m working hard in Parliament to push Ministers, as well as local health leaders, until my constituents can get the treatment they need closer to home.”

He also pointed to the wider system as the root of the problem, while pressing for action on the money already sitting available.

“We urgently need the Government to take this seriously and transform the NHS dental contract but in the meantime we need to know money that is available today is spent here in North Cornwall.”