Consultation Announced on NHS Dental Contract Changes
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- Published: Wednesday, 09 July 2025 09:36
- Written by Peter Ingle
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A week is a long time in NHS dentistry, as well as in politics.
The ambitious NHS 10 year plan provided a vision of a service transformed beyond recognition. For dentistry many commentators both applauded its bold ambition whilst insisting that without rapid major changes to implement a new contract, it was unlikely to be achieved.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Stephen Kinnock Minister of State at the DHSC, have announced a major consultation on further changes to the existing NHS dental contract, which opens on July 8th.
Headed as “More NHS dentistry for those who need it most” the reforms follow the trailed strategy of focussing on priority groups and emergency care.
To reduce disincentives for taking on higher needs patients the proposals include, a new special course of treatment for patients with severe gum disease or with at least 5 carious teeth, more money for denture modifications, and a requirement for dentists to deliver a set amount of urgent and unscheduled care each year.
There will also be “robust” preventative measures for child dental health, including better use of tooth resin sealants for children with a history of caries, and applications of fluoride varnish to children’s teeth without a full examination.
Measures to make dental staff feel rewarded, incentivised and a bigger part of the NHS are also referred to.
The consultation will run for 6 weeks, closing on 19th August 2025.
The BDA described the announcement as, “small scale, positive changes to the discredited NHS dental contract” that must go in parallel with work to deliver on the pledges of transformational change.
The changes, now being put to consultation and possibly introduced from April 2026, will be to the same UDA contract that the BDA has described as fuelling the exodus of dentists from the NHS.
The BDA noted a new time-limited ‘care pathway’ for higher needs patients, intended to provide fairer returns for seeing clinically complex cases, payment for activity that helps prevent oral disease and decay, and new (or for those with long memories, reinstated) payments, to support clinical audits and peer reviews.
The Association did distinguish approvingly between these proposals and the dental ‘recovery plan’ of early 2024, with the new changes being proposed after negotiation and “constructive engagement.”
However there is no escaping economic hard points, and the package is cost neutral and there is no indication of any movement to even partially reverse the unique real-terms cuts seen by NHS dentistry.
As the consultation was announced, on a visit to Bedfordshire, Wes Streeting refused to set a date for a new dental contract saying: “unless I am 100% certain I can achieve the promise I don’t make it.”
A year after the election, there are still no firm dates to begin negotiating a new contract, let alone for its introduction. If the latest changes are not enough to turn the tide in the decline of NHS dental care, meeting the 2035 goals will become a great deal more challenging. That is, if the government wants current GDPs and their practices, to be involved in its long term plans.
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