NHS Dental Care

NHS dental services

The NHS will provide all treatment that your dentist feels is clinically necessary to keep your teeth, gums and mouth healthy.

This means that if your dentist says that you need a particular type of treatment, it will be available on the NHS.

While some people are eligible for free treatment (see below), dentistry is one of the few NHS services where you have to contribute to the cost of your care.

Find out more about dental charges.

NHS Dentistry is funded to support 50% of the population, and in line with the Dental Reform Programme, access should be targeted to those with the greatest clinical need.

Dental practices are independent businesses, often providing a combination of NHS and private dentistry. Patients are not registered with a dentist in the same way they are with a general practitioner (GP), and individuals can access services at a dental practice located in any area if the practice is accepting new patients.

Practices providing NHS treatment are listed on www.nhs.uk. NHS England do not hold information on practices who are currently accepting new patients. Each practice updates their information on www.nhs.uk

Population need

There are Local Authority Public Health Oral Health Consultants who work with NHS dental commissioning teams to improve the oral health of the local population.

NHS England South West commissioned an independent Oral Health Needs Assessment which was published in 2021. This OHNA can be found here, alongside an appendix focused on Devon.

How to access routine dental services

Dental practices are independent businesses, and most offer both NHS and private treatment.

You can find a dental surgery that’s convenient for you by searching the NHS website.

Locally, you can also contact the NHS Devon Dental helpline, which provides advice on where to find an NHS dentist if you live in Devon. The Dental Helpline centrally assists those patients who live in Devon or Cornwall in finding an NHS dentist.

Call the helpline on 03330 063 300 or email accessdentalhelpline@nhs.net

Emergency and out-of-hours treatment

If you think you need urgent dental care, you should contact your usual dentist. Some surgeries offer emergency appointments and will provide care if it’s necessary.

If they don’t offer emergency appointments, or you don’t have a regular dentist, you can call NHS 111. They will put you in touch with an urgent dental service.

If you need to see a dentist out of hours, call your regular dentist as their voicemail may tell you where you can get treatment. If not, call NHS 111.

The Devon Dental helpline also provides advice on how to access dental care in an emergency. Get in touch on 03330 063 300 or email accessdentalhelpline@nhs.net

Who’s eligible for free dental treatment?

You do not have to pay for NHS dental services if you’re:

  • under 18, or under 19 and in full-time education
  • pregnant or have had a baby in the last 12 months
  • being treated in an NHS hospital and your treatment is carried out by the hospital dentist
  • receiving low-income benefits, or you’re under 20 and a dependant of someone receiving low-income benefits.

Find out more about dental costs and free treatment.

Services for vulnerable people

Specialist community dental services are available for people who may not be able to attend a general dental practice.

These include people with various mental, medical and physical needs – for instance:

  • children with extensive untreated tooth decay who are particularly anxious
  • children in foster homes or residential care, or on the ‘at risk’ register
  • people with physical or learning disabilities, medical conditions or mental health problems
  • children referred for specific treatment
  • adults with complex needs who have difficulty accessing general dental services, including adults with moderate and severe learning and physical disabilities or
  • housebound and homeless people.

In Devon this service is provided by the Salaried Dental Service (Exeter), Plymouth Community Dental Service and Torbay Community Dental Service.

Improving access to dental services in Devon

In the South West, we are working in partnership with the NHS South West Collaborative Commissioning Hub (CCH), local dentists and other Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to develop our South West Dental Recovery Plan to try and address these issues and improve access to dental services for local people.

We are reviewing our plans in light of the published national Dental Recovery Plan on 7 February 2024. We will continue to develop our local plans, aligning to the national priorities, and ensuring the needs of our local communities are being prioritised.

There are several measures in place across the region to increase dental access for patients. Highlights include: 

  • Commissioning additional urgent dental care appointments that people can access by calling NHS111 with an urgent dental need.
  • NHS England has commissioned stabilisation sessions across the South West
  • We have commissioned additional children’s orthodontic capacity in the South West
  • We are supporting an oral health improvement initiative called First Dental Steps where health visitors and midwives are trained to give oral health care advice to families with children under two and have oral health care packs (toothbrushes and toothpaste) to give to families in need – this work is being undertaken in partnership with local authorities. 
  • Supervised toothbrushing programmes are running in schools

Stabilisation services

  • We are implementing a new pathway for those who do not have access to a regular dentist but for whom the urgent care pathway is not appropriate – the stabilisation pathway.
  • Stabilisation sessions are for patients who seek urgent care and who are identified during the appointment as having several additional dental issues that need addressing imminently.  Patients can access stabilisation dental care by calling 111.
  • Stabilisation deals with the provision of a definitive course of treatment for patients without access to an NHS dentists who may have a urgent care need, or are in need of dental intervention to prevent their condition worsening and requiring urgent treatment.
  • Stabilisation should stabilise the dental issue over a course of treatment that, in the clinical judgement of the dentist, will prevent the person from accessing urgent care with the same issue within the following 12 months.

Oral health improvement

The South West has a high rate of dental decay in children, with some areas having a higher than average rate. The 2022 Oral Health Survey of Year 6 children, by local authority and ICB areas, published on 1 February 2024 by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) found:

  • Tooth decay is a preventable disease that can lead to pain and infection. It can affect children’s eating, sleeping, school readiness and their ability to thrive in life.
  • Across England, 16% of Year 6 children who participated in the survey had visible tooth decay in their permanent teeth. This is the first time that the oral health of Year 6 children (aged 10-11 years) in England has been monitored.
  • In the South West as a whole, based on the data available, the percentage of Year 6 children examined with experience of dental decay in their permanent teeth was 12%.
  • Across the region, where data is available at higher tier local authority level, the percentage of children examined with experience of dental decay ranges from 3.4% in Bath and North East Somerset to 26% in Cornwall.

There are a number of children-focused initiatives underway across the South West to try and improve the oral health of our children, detailed below, and health visitors provide advice and support to parents about healthy feeding options for babies and toddlers.

There are plans for dental campaigns to be rolled out nationally with local authorities that will focus on prevention and good dental health.

First Dental Steps programme

  • The First Dental Steps programme is an oral health improvement intervention, embedded in the Healthy Child Programme. It incorporates public health and NICE recommendations into a multi-stranded oral health initiative and builds on the learning from a recent pilot delivered across six South West sites. 
  • In the short-term it is anticipated that the intervention has the potential to support the promotion of preventive dental care for children aged 0-2 years. The universal element of the programme has the potential to impact upon 163,000 children (aged 0-2 years old) across the South West, with a targeted offer to approximately 4,000 vulnerable children.
  • In the longer term it is expected that implementation will support the realisation of the following benefits:
    • An increase in dental access and attendance for children aged 0-2 years;
    • A reduction in the prevalence and severity of dental caries, alongside a reduction in oral health inequalities in young children;
    • A reduction in hospital-based tooth extractions for children due to dental decay.
  • Health visitors and community nurses have received training in oral health promotion, so they can support families with young children in providing evidence-based advice, alongside toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste packs. Children at high risk of decay are identified and referred directly to community dental teams for further help where needed.
  • This programme is already running in Torbay and Plymouth.
  • This scheme complements the existing Brighter Smiles programme run in a few areas, which is aimed at 3–5-year-olds.
  • Work is ongoing with the ICBs towards an anticipated continuation of the programme in 24/25, and to being extended to other areas in the South West.

Supervised toothbrushing and fluoride varnish programmes

  • Programmes are currently underway to give children time and supervision to brush their own teeth at nursery and reception class in some areas, making brushing part of children’s everyday routine and helping to protect their teeth from decay.
  • Dental professionals visit some nurseries and schools to apply fluoride varnish to children’s teeth, with parents’ consent.
  • Supervised toothbrushing schemes are already running in the Devon ICB area.
  • The roll out will be targeted to areas where we know children are at increased risk of developing tooth decay, such as in areas of high deprivation.
  • Providers of the service will work together with colleagues involved in oral health promotion across the region to ensure the successful roll out and reach of this service, including working with the local authority to identify schools in the most deprived areas, before linking with these schools to introduce the project and engage with the school staff and the parents.
  • We are working with the Local Authorities across Devon to invest in further cohorts of children for both supervised toothbrushing and fluoride varnish programmes

Workforce

The South West will expand dental placements by 24% by 2028/29, taking the overall number that year to 1,000 places.

Work is also underway through the establishment of Centres for Dental Development to bring together dental education and training with service delivery models, particularly in areas where there is a shortage of workforce relative to population needs.

There will be an expansion to training places and the Department of Health and Social Care will confirm following through on entry changes to allow therapists and hygienists to work with full scope regarding anaesthetics and fluoride varnish.

Dental recruitment incentive scheme 2024/25

  • The offer of incentive (‘golden hello’) payments has been used in different parts of the NHS to aid recruitment in areas of the country that have traditionally been hard to recruit to.
  • The aim of the Dental Recruitment Incentive Scheme (DRIS) is to help practices that are struggling to attract people through the usual recruitment routes by supporting them to offer a financial incentive. The scheme is designed to encourage relocation to areas with workforce challenges, to attract new workforce to the NHS, and to retain those who might have otherwise moved into private practice.
  • A ‘golden hello’ bonus incentive payment of £20,000 will be offered per dentist for up to 240 dentists.

Complaints and patient communications

On 1 April 2023 responsibility for commissioning NHS dentistry was delegated to ICBs across England. The seven ICBs in the South West are supported by the NHS South West Collaborative Commissioning Hub (CCH) to commission NHS dentistry in their area.

To complain about primary care services in Devon – including dentistry – contact NHS Devon for advice and signposting.

In the first instance, NHS Devon will recommend that concerns or complaints are raised directly with the healthcare provider in question. This is the organisation from which you received the service for instance, a dental surgery. However, if that’s not possible, they will discuss with you what happens next.

  • Telephone – 0300 123 1672
  • Email – d-icb.patientexperience@nhs.net  
  • Post – Patient experience team, NHS Devon, Aperture House, Pynes Hill, Rydon Lane, Exeter, Devon, EX2 5AZ

Registration with an NHS dentist

Patients are not registered with a dental practice in the same way as they are with a general practice, although some dental practices might see patients on a regular basis. Instead, dental practices are contracted to deliver activity and are obliged to only deliver a course of treatment to an individual, irrelevant of where they live, and not to deliver ongoing regular care.

There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend, allowing patients the choice of where they would like to receive a course of treatment, as long as the practice is accepting new patients.

Dental practices are independent businesses, often providing a combination of NHS and private dentistry. Practices providing NHS treatment are listed on the NHS website and they update this list themselves. Neither NHS England or commissioners hold information on practices who are currently accepting new patients, and practices can close their lists at any time if they are full.

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