Are more people getting NHS dental care?

Last year, dental teams delivered 37.6 million courses of treatment (the package of care a person needs to address their particular dental problem, which may involve more than one appointment). This is up 6.2% on the year before. 

But more courses of treatment don’t automatically mean more people getting seen. Official NHS figures published last month show only around two in five adults (40%) have been seen by an NHS dentist in the past two years. This is almost the same as the year before, and well below the 50% of adults who had seen a dentist before the COVID pandemic.

Who’s benefiting from this extra care, and who’s still being left out? We’ve looked at the latest figures, alongside stories people shared between July and August 2026.

How are people without a dentist missing out on improved access?

Getting more people urgent dental care was a Government manifesto pledge in 2024. Incentive payments aimed to encourage NHS dental practices to provide more urgent treatment. Urgent courses of treatment rose by 8.4% last year, showing that more care is being delivered. But new findings from the Office for National Statistics suggest that urgent care access depends heavily on whether someone already has a dentist. 

Among people signed up with an NHS dentist who needed urgent care, 87% got an appointment. Among people not signed up to an NHS dentist, only 16% did. Nearly half (47%) of those without a dentist did not try to make an urgent appointment despite reporting an urgent dental need.

Nuffield Trust analysis of the GP Patient Survey found a similar pattern: 87% of people trying to get an NHS appointment at a practice they had visited before were successful, compared with just 38% trying to get one as a new patient.

Unlike general practice, people can in theory use any dental practice with NHS availability. There are no local catchment areas. But our research has shown people’s confusion about this system, and feedback shows how lack of a permanent registration system can lead to poor or no access to care. People are left searching practice by practice, often with no waiting list or clear route into routine care. 

“I tried to get an emergency appointment…Not one dentist was able or willing to see me. After much phoning around, the best offer I got was an appointment 50 miles from home, in 18 months’ time!! That's too long to live with dental pain.”  — Story shared with Healthwatch England

More urgent treatment is welcome. However, this evidence shows people without regular dental care — who are already more likely to have serious dental problems —  are struggling to access it. For some, finding routine or emergency care is so difficult and discouraging that they stop trying altogether.

“I left the military in December 2012 and have never been able to register with an NHS dentist and given up trying multiple times.” — Story shared with Healthwatch Sheffield

 

Where in England is progress on dental care slowest?

Where you live still makes a big difference to whether you can access NHS dental care. While adult access improved* in almost half of England’s 295 local authority areas, it fell in more than one in five. Six of the eight steepest falls were in Devon. 

(*NOTE: We treated changes of half a percentage point or less in either direction as broadly unchanged.)

There is a map that shows changes to adult access to NHS dentistry across England. You can click here to look at it in more detail.

Although every region recorded an increase in dentists carrying out some NHS work, growth is uneven. 

The South West remains particularly far behind. It has 41 dentists carrying out some NHS work per 100,000 people, down from 47 before the pandemic and well below London’s rate of 53. At the same time, recent Nuffield Trust analysis found strong growth in non-NHS dentist practices in the South West, suggesting that more dental capacity is shifting from NHS to private care.

“I am currently pregnant and therefore entitled to free NHS dental treatment. Despite this, I have been unable to access any NHS dental care whatsoever…I have contacted every NHS dental practice I could identify within approximately one hour’s drive of my home. I have been unable to obtain an NHS place, join a waiting list or secure an appointment.” — Story shared with Healthwatch Cornwall

This echoes findings from our report on the state of patient experience from earlier this year, which emphasised the regional divide in progress. Confidence in accessing timely NHS dental care rose by eight percentage points in towns and cities between 2023 and 2025, but didn’t improve in rural areas. Confidence remained lowest in the South West and North East.

We are seeing a widening divide, with progress often slowest in the communities with the greatest shortages. Without more targeted action, England’s ‘dental deserts’ risk falling even further behind.

Is more care reaching deprived communities?

There are some encouraging signs that the growth in NHS dental activity is reaching more deprived communities, with activity growing fastest in the most deprived areas, as measured by the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).

Much of this growth was in urgent care. Since 2019, urgent courses of treatment have increased by 23.6% in the 10% most deprived areas of England, while falling by 1.2% in the least deprived. Over the same period, non-urgent treatment rose by just 0.4% in the most deprived areas and fell by 6.7% in the least deprived.

This meant urgent care made up 14.2% of all treatment in the most deprived communities in 2025/26, compared with 8.1% in the least deprived. The figures suggest people in poorer communities are more likely to receive care once their dental problem has become urgent, rather than getting routine, preventative treatment earlier. 

Our research last year also found a clear financial divide. Only 25% of people struggling financially felt confident they could access timely dental care, compared with 43% of people living comfortably.

My previous dentist changed to private from NHS. My treatment was interrupted due to this so I had a tooth pulled because I could not afford a crown as I needed to prioritise food and other essentials.” — Story shared with Healthwatch West Sussex

It is unclear whether the higher use of urgent care in deprived communities reflects greater need, barriers to routine care or both. But more activity does not necessarily mean fairer access to routine care.

Is children’s access improving?

The clearest sign of progress is in children's dentistry. 

Around 7.17 million children saw an NHS dentist in 2025/26, around 60% of England's children, up from 57% the year before. That is 270,000 more children than last year. Courses of treatment for children also rose, up 7% to around 13 million.

Some local areas show how quickly children’s access can improve. In North Devon, the proportion of children seen rose by 9.5 percentage points, even as adult access fell. Children’s access increased by 9.3 points in Wyre, compared with a 1.2-point rise for adults, and 9.0 points in Preston, compared with 2.2 points for adults.