‘I spent uni savings on getting my teeth fixed’ – the real cost of NHS dentist shortage

Another person who contacted Your Voice was Sophie Bingham, a 32-year-old mother-of-one from Suffolk.

Since the age of 18, she has been paying for private dental treatment, but became frustrated when she was unable to get free care while pregnant. In the UK, all pregnant women can access free NHS dental treatment – hormonal changes as well as things like morning sickness and acid reflux increase the risk of damage to teeth.

Sophie had a maternity exemption certificate, but was told it could not be used at a private practice.

She had to pay for check-ups during her pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. She eventually ended up having her first filling costing £200.

“I certainly think pregnancy affected my teeth – that’s why it was so frustrating not to get the free dental care I was entitled to. I was paying out £70 for check-ups, but could not afford as many as I would have liked. It was too expensive,” she says.

“That is money that I should have been able to put towards my daughter.”

The British Dental Association (BDA) says it has sympathy for patients as people should not be forced into paying for private care.

“Millions make a positive decision to go private,” says BDA chair Eddie Crouch. “But many have felt forced to do so or simply gone without the care they need.”

But Crouch is insistent the price rises are justified, saying there is particularly high inflation in the sector.

He also says another factor is that dentists are having to “subsidise” NHS work with income from private patients because they are not paid enough by the health service.

In its submission to the CMA investigation, the BDA suggests in England it costs £4.2bn to provide NHS dentistry, but only £3bn of that comes from the government, leaving dentists a £1.2bn shortfall.

It is, the BDA argues, one of the main reasons dental practices are shifting to do more private work with figures suggesting a third of practices are aiming to do this and more than a quarter are now private only.

If this trend continues, the impact could be devastating, says Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health think-tank.

At a time when people are already struggling with the cost of living, she says that risks “locking people out of care altogether” and is why ministers must urgently reform the “broken NHS system”.

Governments in all four UK nations are increasing investment in NHS dentistry and making changes to dental contracts in the hope of giving people more choice. In England, this will involve a complete overhaul of the way NHS dentistry works by 2029.

But England’s Department of Health and Social Care is also clear that private dentistry has to be held to account, which is why the CMA has been asked to investigate, it says.

“Families up and down the country are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living and no-one should have to choose between paying their bills and looking after their teeth,” a spokesman adds.

Additional reporting by Kris Bramwell