The British Dental Association has stressed that confirmation that underspends in NHS dentistry have crashed to historic lows mean there are now no excuses for Government not to invest in easing the access crisis.
Today Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock MP told Parliament that unused budget for the struggling service has fallen from £392 million in 2023/24 to just £36 million. These underspends do not reflect any lack of demand for care, but show the depth of the crisis facing the service, with many practices simply unable to fill vacancies, while others struggle delivering NHS care at a financial loss.
The Government has used these underspends as a convenient excuse not to sustainably invest in the service. The budget for NHS dentistry has remained flat since 2010, with no attempt to keep pace with demand, inflation, or population growth. [1]
Underfunding has reached the point where NHS dentistry is now being kept afloat by private patients. A typical NHS dentist loses £42.60 for every denture fitted and £7.69 for every new patient exam they carry out. The Department of Health and Social Care has collected data for a 'cost of service' exercise to measure this funding gap last Summer, but it has yet to be published.
Not a penny of new investment has underpinned the reforms announced at the end of last year. The BDA stress that to save NHS dentistry, and deliver a sustainable prevention-focused, patient-centred model of care, would require only a modest investment. The BDA has modelled those costs at an additional £1.5bn a year.
Shiv Pabary, Chair of the British Dental Association’s General Dental Practice Committee, said:
“Ministers have used the vast underspends in NHS dentistry as an excuse not to invest.
“Underspends have now all but vanished, yet we still have an access crisis.
“We have practices delivering NHS care at a loss. Without sustainable funding there is no way to restore care to millions.”
Notes to editors
[1] The budget is made up of both dental charges and government contributions. Even before factoring in inflation, Government put in less in 2023/24 (£2.18bn) then it did in 2010/11 (£2.2bn). This is unique for any NHS service. Factoring in inflation this has translated into savage real-terms cuts to the total budget of over a third, which has contributed to a collapse in access to care and a workforce exodus.