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English dentists ‘walking away’ from NHS work as fees fail to cover costs
A growing “exodus” of dentists willing to provide care on the NHS threatens to exacerbate the crisis in patients’ access to treatment, the profession’s leaders have said.
Dentists are increasingly stopping doing NHS-funded work because their fees for many procedures do not even cover the costs involved, according to the British Dental Association (BDA).
The fact that NHS payments had not kept pace with rising costs was forcing dental surgeries in England to “operate like a charity” when carrying out work for the health service, it said.
The situation was so serious that dentists were in effect subsiding the NHS care they provided from their private work to the tune of about £332m a year, according to BDA analysis.
Dentists lost £42.60 every time they fitted dentures and £7.69 on each examination of a new patient’s dental health when the NHS was paying for the treatment, it said.
The findings come weeks after Wes Streeting, the health secretary, warned MPs that “NHS dentistry is at death’s door” and promised to take steps to save it from extinction.
The inability to get NHS dental care, and the consequent emergence of “DIY dentistry” and “dental deserts” across swaths of England, has become a key public and political concern in recent years.
Source: The Guardian, 13 February 2025