Government plans for an upper limit of 2.4% on pay awards represent a clear failure to confront the pressures fuelling the exodus of dentists away from NHS care.
The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England's joint written evidence to the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) for the 2027 to 2028 pay round forecasts inflation at around 2.4%. The proposed uplift will therefore offer no increase in real pay whatsoever.
Of course, we lack any confidence that current processes will deliver the necessary total uplift to contract values to achieve anything other than a pay cut for dentists. While the document appears to acknowledge the weaknesses in its existing method for calculating expenses, it stresses the lack of a “credible alternative index that would provide a more accurate and stable basis for setting national uplifts.”
In our own evidence to the DDRB we have pressed for a 6.83% total uplift in contract values, to properly reflect the mounting overheads facing practices. For employed dentists we’ve asked for a 6.4% uplift to salaries – which would achieve the same increase for GDPs on pay.
A generation of savage cuts have left dental practices delivering a wide range of NHS treatment at a financial loss. A cost-of-service study commissioned by the Northern Irish Executive recently concluded it costs around £145 an hour for an NHS practice to deliver care; current levels provide only around £90. The UK Government has yet to publish its own research on the scale of the funding gap in NHS dentistry in England.
“The Government claims it wants to ‘match resources to need’ in NHS dentistry” says Eddie Crouch.
“It is impossible to see how it achieves that, with what amounts to a pay cut for dentists already thinking twice about their futures.
“This document talks of tough choices and trade-offs. The reality is reheated austerity here will have a lasting impact for millions struggling to access care.”
We are grateful to every dentist that provided the evidence we’ve put to the pay review body. We will be looking to the DDRB to do as they’ve done before - and simply reject these affordability recommendations, and respond to the real evidence from the front line.