NHS Dental Contract Changes for First Time in Over a Decade

For the first time in 16 years, substantial revisions have been made to the NHS dental contract. Modifications, such as having a minimum UDA value, are set to increase the availability of dental care for individuals throughout the nation.

With the new contracts, dentists for the NHS will receive higher payments when performing more challenging work, and be authorised to perform fillings, sealants, and preventative care on the NHS.

The predominant aim is that the contract modifications will boost the number of dentists available to practice, enabling the dental sector to recover from the previous pressures of Covid.

Chief dental officer, Sara Hurley, explained that “the changes announced today address many of the challenges voiced by frontline dental teams and will make a real difference to patients.”

Health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, added: “The NHS commits around £3 billion to dentistry each year and we provided unprecedented support, including £1.7 billion, during the pandemic to protect teams and patients by paying dental practices for the work they would normally have carried out.”.

But not everyone is loving the recent changes, with The British Dental Association convinced this does nothing to slow or prevent the large outflow of dentists from the field or deal with patient access issues. Thousands of dentists left the NHS during Covid, with 44 million NHS dental appointments not carried out in the same period.

The BDA’s general dental practice committee chairman, Shawn Charlwood commented that “these are modest, marginal changes that will not fix the rotten foundations this service is built on. The simple fact is not a penny of new investment has been pledged, and government targets will still come before patient care.”