Dental Services
(asked on 18th June 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many dentists had a primary or majority commitment to NHS dentistry, for each of the past five years for which figures are available.
The Department does not hold information on the number of dentists whose primary or majority commitment was to National Health Service dentistry in each of the last five years.
The annual NHS dental statistics published by the NHS Business Services Authority show the number of dentists who performed any amount of NHS dental activity in England in the last five financial years. The following table shows the number of dentists performing NHS work in the last five financial years:
Financial year | Number of dentists performing NHS work |
2020/21 | 23,733 |
2021/22 | 24,265 |
2022/23 | 24,151 |
2023/24 | 24,307 |
2024/25 | 24,655 |
Source: Dental statistics - England 2024/25, available on the NHS Business Services Authority website.
The NHS Dental Workforce Survey also collects data on the proportion of dentists’ time spent on NHS and private work in practices with NHS contracts. The latest data available relates to December 2024 and is available on the NHS.UK website.