The South East Primary Care Transformation Dental Team  provides leadership and oversight on the recovery, provision and delivery  of dental services across the South East region working with the Dental Commissioning Hub  and ICB dental commissioners. The focus is on recovery to pre-pandemic levels of delivery, improving access for patients, tackling oral health inequalities, strengthening contract management, and progressing dental contract reform. There isa particular emphasis on improving outcomes in designated ‘dental deserts’ which are  underserved areas with the greatest need.

Dental treatment on the NHS

• The NHS provides clinically necessary treatment needed to keep your mouth, teeth and gums healthy.
• The dentist will decide how often you should attend, this is based on clinical risk factors which is personalised and could mean a recall interval ranging from 3-24 months.
• Your dentist must make clear which treatments can be provided on the NHS and which can only be provided privately, and the costs associated for each.
• Ask the dentist to explain in more detail the reason behind the treatment options being suggested.
• You should feel properly informed before having any treatment, including about the risks, benefits and likely outcome of the treatment.
• You can get dental treatment on the NHS if you need it to keep your mouth and teeth healthy. You’ll usually need to get cosmetic treatments privately.
• You can get NHS dental care by making an appointment at an NHS dentist, patients are not officially registered with an NHS dentist, it is important that you attend all appointments or give notice of a cancellation where necessary.

What’s included in NHS dental services

Dental services you can get on the NHS include:

• dentist appointments to check if your teeth and mouth are healthy, including urgent appointments
• treatments for problems and injuries affecting your teeth and mouth
• advice and treatments to help prevent dental conditions

You can get NHS dental care by making an appointment at an NHS dentist.

Seeing a Dentist: Dental services – NHS

Treatment Costs: How much NHS dental treatment costs – NHS 

1.Future Contract Reforms:-

Dental Payment and Contract Reforms 26/27

Patients across England will be able to get urgent dentist appointments more easily thanks to a major overhaul of NHS dentistry.

• The government will proceed with a raft of reforms – the most significant modernisation of the NHS dental contract in years – following a consultation with the sector and the public.
• By prioritising patients with the greatest needs, the changes, which will be in place from April 2026, will make sure the NHS dentistry budget – estimated at around £4 billion – delivers value for money for the taxpayer by diverting funds into better and more effective treatments for those who need them most.

Benefits for Patients:

• Easier and more reliable access to care when urgently needed: The reformed contract embeds a requirement for all NHS dental practices to provide a set level of urgent and unscheduled care, and increases payments for urgent treatment, making it more likely patients in pain or with emergencies can be seen promptly without needing to travel far.
• Better treatment for people with complex dental needs: New care pathways and more appropriate funding will support comprehensive treatment for patients with extensive decay or severe gum disease, encouraging dentists to take on and complete longer, more complex courses of care rather than dividing them into multiple short visits.
• Greater focus on prevention and quality of care: The reforms aim to shift activity toward evidence-based, preventive interventions (like more use of the full dental team and risk-based recall intervals), reduce unnecessary check-ups, and support quality improvement activities that can improve overall oral health outcomes.

Benefits for Practices:

• Better financial support and incentives for delivering a wider range of NHS care: The reformed contract increases payments for urgent and complex treatments and introduces more appropriate remuneration structures (e.g., higher payments for unscheduled care and complex care pathways), helping practices to be more financially viable and making NHS work more sustainable

Reforms: Major boost for millions of NHS dental patients – GOV.UK

2. Government Manifesto Pledge:-

Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments 25/26 (onwards)

• Each ICB has a target of urgent appointments to roll out, based on estimated local levels of unmet need for urgent NHS care. Levels of unmet need are calculated by measures including looking at how many people tried and failed to get an NHS dentist appointment.
• These extra appointments will be for patients who are likely to be in pain – including those suffering from infections or needing urgent repairs to a bridge – and require urgent treatment.

Appointments Allocations: Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments – GOV.UK

Benefits for Patients:

• Better access to urgent and emergency treatment: Many patients who struggle to get seen when in pain or with dental emergencies will have more opportunities to be seen quickly on the NHS, reducing the likelihood of prolonged discomfort or worsening problems.
• Targeted support in underserved areas: The extra appointments are prioritised for regions with the greatest unmet need (“dental deserts”), helping to reduce geographic inequalities in access to NHS dental care.
• Short-term relief while wider reforms progress: By increasing the number of NHS dental appointments available this year, patients gain more immediate access to care as part of broader efforts to stabilise and rebuild NHS dentistry over the longer term.

Benefits for Practices:

• Fairer funding for complex and urgent care: The reformed contract is designed to better reward practices for delivering time-intensive, complex and urgent treatments, helping improve financial sustainability and making NHS work more viable for dentists and their teams.

 What is Unscheduled Dental Care? 

• urgent unscheduled care: patients who may require clinical care within 24 hours or as soon as practically possible, unless the condition worsens
• non-urgent unscheduled care: patients requiring dental care within 7 days, unless the conditions worsens

 How do patients access Unscheduled Dental Care? 

• Routes for patients to access these appointments may include;
• Calling 111
• Calling a local NHS Dental Emergency Helpline
• Calling a Dental Practice that the patient knows is providing these additional appointments
• Searching nhs.uk
• Posters in different healthcare settings

Clinical Guidance: Long-read clinical guidance on unscheduled urgent and non-urgent dental care

What is Urgent Dental Care? 

• Examples of (not limited to) urgent dental care include;
• Severe toothache – persistent and intense pain that cannot be managed with self-help advice and over-the-counter painkillers
• Dental abscess- infection causing swelling, pain, and possibly fever
• Broken or knocked-out tooth – trauma resulting in a fractured or completely dislodged tooth.
• Bleeding in mouth following a dental procedure or an injury that doesn’t stop bleeding
• Swelling – significant swelling in the mouth or face that could indicate an infection.
• Fractured, loose or displaced fillings causing pain
• Severe bleeding from gums, or acute conditions affecting other soft areas of the mouth (such as cheeks or tongue) which require urgent treatment.

What is Emergency Care? (Not in scope of these additional 700,000 appointments) 

• Where the patient presents with;
• an oro-facial swelling that is spreading (with or likely to cause airway or intracranial compromise)
• dental conditions resulting in acute and severe systemic illness
• an oro-facial fracture
• intra-oral bleeding that the patient cannot control with local measures
• management of avulsed permanent teeth

These are considered Emergency cases where patients will require clinical triage by an appropriately trained clinical triage professional and subsequent treatment within a timescale that is appropriate to the severity of the condition.

3.Dentist Recruitment:-

Dental Recruitment Incentive Scheme 24/25

The Dental Recruitment Incentive Scheme commenced 2024/25 as an NHS England mandated initiative offering up to £20,000 “golden hello” bonus payments to help dental practices recruit dentists in areas with workforce shortages and is paid to the practitioner to support relocation to specific areas.

The aim is to improve NHS dental access and retain clinicians within the NHS rather than private practice. A target of 240 posts nationally was allocated to the regions with 27 allocated to the South East. 

a 2025/26 regional scheme launched in September defined as an enhanced offer to better incentivise successful recruitment into areas of need.

Benefits for Patients:

• Improved access to NHS dental care: By encouraging dentists to work in under-served areas with financial incentives, more practices can take on NHS patients — helping people who’ve struggled to find a dentist get seen sooner.
• Reduced waiting times and treatment gaps: Recruiting more dentists in areas with workforce shortages means patients will have shorter waits for appointments and treatment, including preventive and routine care, rather than long delays or having to go private.
• Broader geographical fairness in dental services: The scheme aims to place dentists where need is greatest, reducing “dental deserts” and ensuring that people living in less attractive or higher-demand areas have similar chances of accessing NHS dentistry as elsewhere.

Benefits for Practices:

• Easier recruitment of dentists in hard-to-staff areas: The scheme’s “golden hello” bonus makes NHS job offers more attractive to dentists, helping practices fill vacancies more quickly and maintain or expand their NHS services.

Recruitment Scheme: NHS England » Dental recruitment incentive scheme 2024/25

South East Region Communication tools

In Addition to this information, you can also find the South East communications toolkit to support extra urgent dental appointments – Jan 2026 that has been produced to help support dental practices across the South East Region actively and regularly promote these extra urgent dental appointments across owned and earned channels.

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