As the voice of dentistry, we’ve made it our business to spell out the facts to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), for their market study into private dental pricing.
At the outset we publicly questioned the Government’s motives in calling this investigation. Now, having done the numbers, we have to double down and utterly reject the Government’s motives for going here.
We’ve found no evidence of inflation-busting hikes in private prices, but plenty for choice, competition and a Government reaching for cheap headlines and easy answers.
Here’s what you need to know.
The reality at the coal face
We’ve looked at the picture of hundreds of practices providing private care between 2021 and 2025, and how prices have tracked inflation.
What our research indicates is there has in fact been a real-terms reduction in the level of private fees, despite significant increases in overheads.
The average cost of private laboratory-made dental appliances, like dentures and crowns, increased by 4.9% in real terms between 2023 and 2025. The hourly pay of a dental nurse increased by between 4% and 9% from 2024-25.
But private fees charged to patients have declined in real terms by approximately 8%.
This is a clear reflection of a healthy, and highly competitive market.
This couldn’t be further from the numbers cited at the launch of this investigation in March, and the messages from the Chancellor calling for CMA action at the tail end of last year.
The CMA quoted third party sources claiming that between 2022 and 2024, initial consultations rose by over 23% to £80.
Yes, there may be outliers, but there is no evidence of any systemic shift in prices at these levels.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise
Restraint on pricing is effectively built into the world our members operate in.
We already have a clear regulatory framework that requires dentists to act in the interests of patients and to be transparent on costs and treatment options.
The GDC’s Standards for the Dental Team establish ethical and professional requirements for dentists and set out minimum professional standards.
Dentists must put patients’ interests first, and are doing so.
This involves explaining treatment options and their costs; providing treatment plans and their estimated cost; and displaying pricing information, among other specific requirements to ensure transparency for patients.
There are also clear mechanisms for patients to complain and seek redress at a practice level and through the Dental Complaints Service.
And let’s not forget the crucial role patients play themselves – and I use the ‘P’ word, rather than the term ‘customer’ that the CMA insist on.
Patients are sensitive to price increases and don’t always appreciate the costs involved with providing dental treatment.
Price is key to decision making when it comes to care, whether this is private or NHS, with evidence that costs shape decisions about what treatments to receive or whether to receive them at all.
This sensitivity acts as a disciplining factor on dentists’ price setting. Colleagues will know that you can’t maintain a long-term relationship with patients if there is friction over pricing.
Sound and fury
Last November Rachel Reeves rattled out a theatrical missive to the CMA. In a letter to the watchdog the Chancellor said: "the scourge of hidden costs, lack of transparency and overtreatment has blighted families in need of dental treatment for too long.
That’s why I want to see urgent action taken to help reduce prices, whilst the cost of living still puts pressure on families across the country.”
What’s very clear to us is the Government are the authors of the cost-of-living pressures facing dental patients. They have failed to reverse savage cuts made by successive governments that are drawing practices away from the NHS as a simple matter of survival. To be clear, not one of their dental recovery policies has a penny of new investment behind it.
Our analysis indicates that in England, the cost of delivering NHS treatments now exceeds the public funding provided by £1.2 billion.
As we know, most practices provide both NHS and private care. This means that a proportion of the costs of NHS dentistry must be met from private income. And now a typical practice in England is losing over £25 on a checkup, almost £90 on denture repairs, and over £100 on root canal treatment.
Private dentists deserve an apology
High quality and cost-effective private care is a preferred option for many families across the UK.
Thousands of our members meet this patient need in around 12,000 practices, providing treatment options in mixed NHS-private settings, as well as offering cosmetic dental procedures that are simply not available on the NHS.
But in our view government has a clear responsibility to properly fund NHS care to those who don’t have a choice, and prevent people feeling forced into private treatment.
Here, we can see little evidence of the urgency and concern that seemingly shaped the Chancellor’s letter. Because families across the UK aren’t victims of private price gouging, but of continued dental austerity.
The fact is the Treasury has banked on this cross-subsidy to keep spending down, but at material cost to the long-term sustainability of NHS dentistry.
After a generation of savage real-terms cuts, the service needs to be able to stand on its own two feet if it is going to survive.
Again, Government is reaching for easy options.
It’s why Rachel Reeves chose to denigrate private dentists delivering high quality care to millions, rather than support colleagues providing NHS treatment.
The reality is that patients aren’t facing surging private prices, but many have been left with few options because this Chancellor won’t plug the funding gap in NHS dentistry.
Our private colleagues deserve an apology.
Those in the NHS require some tangible support.