Dental Services: Expenditure
(asked on 22nd July 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the NHS budget was spent on primary care dentistry net of patient charge revenue in each year since 2010-11.
Prior to 2023/24, there was no specific dental budget allocation and dentistry formed part of a wider budget including community pharmacy and optometry. NHS England accounts show the total spend on General Dental Service (GDS) and Personal Dental Service (PDS) contracts, and the income from patient charges. Some community care is delivered through PDS contracts but in general this figure is a proxy for primary dental spend.
The following table shows GDS and PDS spending, less patient charge revenue, in each year since 2014/15 for which accounts have been published, as a proportion of the total National Health Service budget:
Financial Year | GDS and PDS spending as percentage of total NHS budget |
2014/15 | 2.39% |
2015/16 | 2.47% |
2016/17 | 1.95% |
2017/18 | 1.89% |
2018/19 | 1.76% |
2019/20 | 1.78% |
2020/21 | 1.83% |
2021/22 | 1.61% |
2022/23 | 1.41% |
2023/24 | 1.36% |
Source: NHS England
Note: The timeseries of the NHS budget is not comparable prior to 2014/15 so earlier years have not been provided.