Only one third of adults accessed NHS dental care within the last two years

New data has found that only 34% of adults across the UK accessed NHS dental care within a two-year period. The percentage of children seen within the same period was 44.8% (31^st March 2020 – 31^st March 2022). In the last full year before the pandemic started, 49.6% of adults and 58.7% of children were seen by NHS dental care. This demonstrates that the pandemic had a profound effect on the number of patients that could access NHS dental care. Furthermore, in 2021-22 only 26.4 million courses of NHS dental treatment were given. This is 33% less than the previous five-year average before the pandemic which was 39.4 million.

Dental practices are unable to take on new NHS adult patients

A recent study conducted by the BBC found that 91% of dental practices in England were unable to accept new NHS adult patients, with 79% not taking new child patients.

In the past two years more than three thousand dentists have left the NHS in favour of private dentistry as many dentists become frustrated with the system. The British Dentistry Association (BDA) believes that more will continue to leave for private dentistry if NHS dentistry does not improve.

Recent amendments to NHS dental contracts

On 19^th July 2022, NHS England announced a reform to NHS dental services in an attempt to help alleviate the issues within NHS dentistry. NHS England said ‘Patients across the country will benefit from improved access to dental care under changes announced by NHS England today’.

Improved access

NHS England believes that the changes they have made will improve access to NHS dental care across the country. Below we have bullet-pointed some key changes in the contract:

• NHS dentists will receive increased pay to treat more complex cases
• Dental therapists can now provide NHS treatments such as fillings, sealants, and preventative care for adults and children. The aim of this is to provide dentists with more time for urgent and complex cases.
• High-performing practices can increase their activity by a further 10%.

BDA response

The BDA believes that these plans announced by NHS England will have little effect to prevent dentists from leaving NHS dentistry or help fix the crisis or patient access to NHS dental care. The chair of the BDA’s general dental practice committee, Shawn Charlwood has said ‘Our patients need ministers to do more than paper over the cracks. These tweaks will do precious little to keep dentists in the NHS or ensure millions get the care they urgently need.’ He also pointed out in this reform that no new investment was pledged by the government to help fix NHS dentistry.

How can we help?

At Hawsons our dedicated team of dental accountants and tax advisors offer specialist accountancy and taxation services to dentists and their practices, utilising our in-depth knowledge and experience in the sector.

Our friendly team offer a unique client focused service to ensure all your accountancy and taxation requirements are dealt with as smoothly and efficiently as possible.