What is actually happening in Dental?
Can You Actually Get an NHS Dentist?
NHS dentistry has effectively collapsed for millions. Nearly half of adults cannot access an NHS dentist, and the workforce continues to shrink as practitioners shift to private practice.
What's improving
Children's NHS dental access has recovered faster than adults — from a pandemic low of 42% in 2020/21 to 65.2% in 2024/25. Schools and community dental services have helped rebuild routine check-up habits for younger patients.
Source: NHS England — NHS Dental Statistics 2024/25.
Only 49.1% of adults in England saw an NHS dentist in the two years to March 2025, down from 57.3% before the pandemic — a gap equivalent to roughly 8 million people losing access to routine care. Children's access fell even harder during COVID, bottoming at 42% in 2020/21, though it has since recovered to 65.2%. The human cost of delayed treatment is measured in hospital theatres: 35,156 children underwent tooth extractions under general anaesthetic in 2022/23. Dental decay is the leading cause of hospital admission for children aged 5–9, and it is almost entirely preventable.
The structural cause is the 2006 NHS dental contract, which pays by “units of dental activity” — each unit worth roughly £28, whether the work is a simple filling or a complex crown. The incentive is to treat simple cases fast and avoid difficult ones entirely. Combined with years of below-inflation fee uplifts, the result has been predictable: 1,800 dentists have left NHS practice since 2018, leaving 22,056. The government's dental recovery plan, announced in February 2024 with £200 incentive payments for returning practitioners, has not yet reversed the decline.
Geography compounds the problem. Access rates range from 36% in the worst-served areas to 61% in the best, with rural and coastal communities hit hardest. Patients who cannot find an NHS dentist face a stark choice: pay privately (£50–£100 for a check-up, against £26.80 on the NHS), travel long distances, or go without. Many choose the last option. When half a population cannot access a basic health service — one where early intervention is cheap and neglect is expensive — the cost falls not on dentists or contracts but on emergency wards and children under anaesthetic.