The British Dental Association has warned that the 50 new dental school places confirmed today stand little chance of easing chronic workforce problems or enhancing patient access to NHS dental care without comprehensive reform.
The Office for Students has now allocated 25 new undergraduate dentistry places to the University of Portsmouth and 25 to the University of East Anglia. Both institutions will be offering dentistry programmes for the first time from 2027.
The professional body has cautioned advocates of expansion that experience suggests these schools are unlikely to have a game changing impact locally. The 58 places currently offered at Peninsular Dental School in Plymouth appear to have done little to take the edge off the South West’s chronic access issues.
The BDA stress these numbers are tiny and are on track to represent less than 2% of new registrants. [1] It warns that without fundamental reform of the discredited NHS contract, wedded to a sustainable funding settlement, there is little hope of arresting the crisis in the service. [2] Unmet need for NHS dental care currently stands at nearly 14 million, or over 1 in 4 of England’s adult population. [3]
BDA Chair Eddie Crouch said:
“New dental schools are a step forward but are no silver bullet for ending dental deserts.
“Keeping even this tiny number of new graduates in the NHS hinges on making the service a place dentists would choose to build a career.
“That means real reform, wedded to sustainable funding.”
Notes to editors:
[1] In March the UK Government set in place an approach that will see the total number of dentists potentially joining the UK dental register through any route rising from around 2,100 to up to 4,200 per year from 2028, with a potential for up to three-quarters joining through international routes, in a marked break from the approach taken with other healthcare professions.
[2] Labour has pledged to deliver fundamental reform of the discredited contract fuelling the current crisis in NHS dentistry within this parliament, with a new model of care set to go to public consultation this summer. The BDA has expressed profound concern that this process could now be delayed, given the current uncertainty across government.
Dental school expansion is the first policy on the dental workforce with any new money behind it. Typical practices are now delivering NHS care at a financial loss, with many reconsidering their futures in the service. BDA analysis estimates a typical practice in England is losing over £25 on a checkup, almost £90 on denture repairs, and over £100 on root canal treatment. In England, the cost of delivering NHS treatments now exceeds the public funding provided by £1.2 billion. Analysis using treatment timings, an updated cost per clinical hour, and observed activity volumes, the total funding required to deliver NHS dental services in England is estimated at approximately £4.18 billion. This compares to an NHS primary care dental budget of £2.96 billion in 2023/24, implying a funding shortfall of around £1.22 billion.
[3] BDA analysis of the GP Survey, 2025, by Ipsos, extrapolating data in line with ONS midyear population estimates, places unmet need at close to 14m adults or over 1 in 4 of England’s adult population. Unmet need figures for 2025 were almost unchanged on 2024 levels, at around 13.8m. Prior to Covid, levels of unmet need hovered consistently at around 1 in 10 of the adult population.