Northern Ireland Concentrates on Emergency Dental Service
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- Published: Wednesday, 30 April 2025 09:29
- Written by News Editor
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A recent BBC report states that dentists in Northern Ireland have removed over 53,000 NHS patients from their practice lists in the past two years.
Over the period 2023-2024, 114 dentists returned their NHS contracts to the Department of Health, with many transitioning to private practice.
There are currently, 360 dental practices in Northern Ireland and only two of those provide treatment solely within the NHS.
In Northern Ireland patients can register with a practice and will stay on that dentist’s patient list for 24 months. Normally the registration period will be extended if you return for another examination or further treatment during that period. In 2023, almost 13,000 NHS patients lost access to NHS treatment, that rose to just short of 41,000 in 2024.
Up to January this year, there were 192,780 fewer patients registered with dentists, including those who had not attended for some time. Some patients have been offered private dental payment plans covering basic check-ups and cleaning, with extra treatment attracting additional costs.
The Northern Ireland Department of Health (DoH) is responsible for the funding and contractual arrangements for health service dentistry,
In a statement, the DoH said the decrease in registered patients was down to people falling off dentists’ lists because of not having attended for two years and practices not registering new patients. Dentists were under no obligation to register health service patients.
“Patients with urgent dental problems can be treated under the Dental Access Scheme, which was set up for unregistered patients, asylum seekers and refugees”.
There are 34 practices signed up to that scheme - which represents less than 10% of Northern Ireland dental practices.
The department added that a review of dental services was under way, but said the budget allocated "is not sufficient to meet the needs of the current service, let alone introduce the kind of transformative change that is needed. There had been investment in dental access schemes, which had also led to almost 34,000 children becoming registered with a dentist since June 2024,".
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