BDA poll finds 63% of English dentists plan to cut NHS work

Only 10% of the 415 dentists polled said recent tweaks to the NHS dental contract had made NHS dentistry better. The BDA meets Department of Health and Social Care officials on Tuesday, its first meeting since Andy Burnham became prime minister, and will press them on additional funding.

What the poll found

Shiv Pabary, chair of the BDA's General Dental Practice Committee, said: "Tweaks at the margins simply haven't changed the fundamentals. Millions still have no options, and demoralised dentists are still walking away." A Nuffield Trust analysis found the share of dental practices offering NHS general dentistry fell from 64.6% in 2017 to 55.6% in 2026.

In absolute terms, 608 practices have abandoned their NHS contract since March 2017, including 135 since 2024.

The number of registered NHS dentists in England fell from 6,262 in March 2017 to 5,654 in March 2026. England had 10,160 dental practices, over 400 more than a decade earlier, but practices without a general NHS contract rose by over 1,000. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust, said there had been no closure programme and no single decision to cut the service. Dayan called it a quiet transformation into a two-tier service. The report states that dental capacity has not disappeared from some areas but has moved beyond the reach of anyone who cannot pay for it.

The money behind the decision

The BDA ties the retreat to funding. NHS dental funding in England stayed at around £3bn for more than a decade, which the BDA calculated amounted to a £1bn real-terms cut. The share of the NHS budget spent on dentistry fell from 3.3% in 2010 to 1.5% in 2024. Labour raised the annual budget to £3.5bn for 2024/25, and the BDA says fundamental reform needs £1.5bn a year more than that. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson put the dentistry allocation at £3.7bn, a figure that includes spending beyond the annual budget.

The BDA has accused the government of double standards over NHS contracts, warning that pledged reform of dental terms is set to take place without new investment. The government has pledged a £485 million uplift for GPs, equal to a real terms increase for the second year running. The BDA says NHS dentistry has operated on a flat budget for a generation.

What patients face

Patients absorb the difference. Unmet need for NHS dentistry fell slightly from 13.8 million in 2025 to 13.3 million in 2026, but about one in four adults still cannot get seen, up from around one in ten before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 2026 GP Survey for England shows 6.2 million people did not get treated for a problem in the previous two years because they "didn't think I could get an appointment", up 300,000 on 2025. The British Dental Association's analysis of the same survey indicates that 4.9 million adult patients tried and failed to secure NHS care in the last two years, down 800,000 on last year. Those with unmet need include 1.3 million who said they could not afford NHS care because of the cost of dental charges. Some turn to crowdfunding. GoFundMe appeals for dentistry rose from 627 in 2019 to 1,297 in 2024, and 852 new campaigns were started in the first six months of 2025, suggesting a 31% rise. Eddie Crouch, the BDA's chair, said: "The fundraising might be digital, but this is another step back to the Victorian era."

What happens next

The BDA will press officials on what additional funding the government will provide. Labour has promised to reform the contract before the end of this parliament.

The government points to progress, saying it delivered 1.8 million extra courses of dental treatment between April and October 2025, compared with the same seven months before the 2024 general election. It has increased emergency dental appointments by paying dentists more for them and introduced supervised teeth brushing at schools in more deprived areas. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government had brought in "the most significant reforms to the dental contract in years", delivered "a record number of urgent dental treatments" and expanded dental school places, adding: "But we know there is much more to do." It continues to consult on contract reform.