Dentists need government support

While the media reports patients are struggling to find NHS dentists, dentists are struggling to provide services and it continues to get worse.

When dentists are already down, the government lands another blow on dental practices in England. The increase in National Insurance Contributions (NIC) Rachel Reeves announced in the October 2024 budget will hit dental practices hard. Regardless of whether the government is Conservative or Labour, there has been no commitment to support and resolve the issues in the dental sector.

Dentists are struggling as the figures simply don’t add up

The major cost for a service like dentistry is staffing. A clinician and nurse attends a patient in each appointment, supported by reception and administrative teams. A change to staffing costs significantly impacts all small businesses but in particular face-to-face services.

From April 2025, employers face a 1.2% increase in NICs, raising the rate to 15%.  Additionally, the threshold from when employers start paying 15% NIC will drop from £9,100 to £5,000 for each employee.

Income has not kept pace

While dental practices struggle to budget for staffing increases from April 2025, there are still this year’s (2024-25) deficits in NHS funding to come to terms with.

Typically, the NHS contractual payments to dentists are uplifted each April. In the past, the uplift was usually announced in February or March and was paid from April each year, enabling dentists to cost and budget for their cash-flow requirements over the next financial year.

In April 2023, the NHS increased patient charges by 8.5%, but only 60% of this was passed on to dental practices. It wasn’t until October 2023 that the NHS increased payments to dentists by 5.13%, backdating it to April 2023.

Another additional cost is the National Minimum Wage increases affecting all salaries for employed staff in the dental sector.  In April 2023 the increase was 9.7%, and in April 2024 it was 9.8%.

Even though NHS patient charges rose by 8.5% in 2023 the NHS only increased payments to the dental sector by 5.13% leaving dental practices to fund higher staffing costs, and there has been no increase since then.

On Sunday it will be 1st December 2024, nearly three-quarters of the way through the 2024-25 financial year, yet there has been no word from the government on basic pay for the current year, despite the 4% increase of NHS patient charges on 1st April 2024.

No uplift so far in 2024

The last increase in government payments to dental practices was on April 1, 2023. Dental practices are currently funding all increased costs from their own pockets and private patient income.

The price of utilities, of materials, of servicing equipment, of dental laboratory work have all increased significantly over the last twenty months, with staffing costs seeing the biggest rise.

Now we are nearly in December, and the rate of pay dentists receive has been the same for 20 months.

So far, we have had no increase from the NHS for 2024-25, nor do we even have the information to help us budget for the increased costs of running a practice. And we certainly do not have the information we need to be able to plan for the additional expense of taxes the government is levying.

Patients can support their dentist

Are NHS dentists feeling unsupported and ignored? The answer is yes.

Patients must make their voices heard. Without action, NHS dentistry will shrink further and eventually disappear.

With another significant increase in staffing costs due to start next year, without realistic financial support from the NHS for NHS dental appointments, the only option available to patients will be private treatment at their local dentist.

We urge patients to get in touch with their MP to express their concerns about access to NHS dental care.

“When should I contact my MP?”

“Now!”

Find your MP

You can read more about SpaDental’s lobbying of government here.

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