Patients across England will be able to get urgent dentist appointments more easily thanks to a major overhaul of NHS dentistry.
The government will proceed with a raft of reforms – the most significant modernisation of the NHS dental contract in years – following a consultation with the sector and the public. The government response to the NHS dentistry contract: quality and payment reforms consultation was published on Tuesday (16 December).
By prioritising patients with the greatest needs, the changes, which will be in place from April 2026, will make sure the NHS dentistry budget – estimated at around £4 billion – delivers value for money for the taxpayer by diverting funds into better and more effective treatments for those who need them most.
For example, a patient with tooth decay in several teeth or severe gum disease would require complex treatment. Currently, they would need to be treated over multiple appointments. For a patient, this is hard to co-ordinate and book with a dentist. For a dentist, this would be costly and time-consuming.
With the changes, this patient could secure a single comprehensive package of treatment with a dentist over a longer period, tailored to their needs and including oral health advice. This could save a patient up to £225 in fees. For the dentist, they will be incentivised to deliver this under our new standardised payment package. This will support thousands of patients to receive better care on the NHS.
Patients also struggle to find dental practices that treat people with urgent needs and have to choose to live with the pain or travel out of their local area to find somewhere that can treat them.
These reforms will make urgent dental care a core part of what NHS dental practices must provide through the new contract, making it easier for people to access an urgent appointment at their local NHS dental practice, saving them from travelling out of their area.
Urgent care may be for issues including severe tooth pain, dental infections, trauma to teeth, or other conditions that need rapid treatment – and dentists will be fairly incentivised to treat these on the NHS.
The sweeping reforms work alongside the government’s wider rescue plan for dentistry, including the rollout of urgent and emergency care appointments and community water fluoridation schemes proven to reduce decay.
“We inherited a broken NHS dental system and have worked at pace to start fixing it – rolling out urgent and emergency appointments and bringing in supervised toothbrushing for young children in the most deprived areas,” said Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock.
“Now we are tackling the deep-rooted problems so patients can have faith in NHS dentistry – these changes will make it easier for anyone with urgent dental needs to get NHS treatment, preventing painful conditions from spiralling into avoidable hospital admissions.”
This marks the first step towards a new era for NHS dentistry after a decade of decline, one that delivers for patients and our dedicated dental professionals, he said.
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