GP Patient Survey Dental Statistics; January to March 2021, England

In January to March 2021, 2.4 million adults were asked about their views on NHS dentistry as part of the GP Patient Survey. Participants were asked if they had tried to obtain an appointment with an NHS dentist and, if so, whether it was with a practice they had been to before and if they had been successful. They were also asked what their overall experience was of NHS dentistry.  Patients who hadn’t tried to obtain an NHS dentist in the previous two years were asked to select the main reason why they hadn’t tried.

There have been changes with regards to geographies. A number of CCGs were merged, and boundaries were changed so that the number of CCGs was reduced from 135 in 2020 to 106 this year.

The results from the survey responses are presented here at national (England), regional and Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) level.

Main results

2.4 million GP Patients age 16 and over were contacted, 850,000 replies were received, with a response rate of 35%.

• Of all respondents asked, just under three fifths (56%) tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the last two years.
• Of the group of respondents who had tried to get an appointment in the last two years;
  • Excluding those who had not indicated if they visited the same dentist, 77% rated their NHS dental experience as positive (44% very good and 33% fairly good).
  • 74% were successful in getting an appointment, a success rate of 77% when excluding the ‘can’t remember’ category. This is significantly lower than last year.
  • Respondents who had not been to the practice before were less successful in getting an NHS dental appointment. Younger adults and ethnic minorities also reported a slightly lower success rate. A lower proportion of younger adults and respondents from ethnic minorities had been to the practice before, compared to other respondents.
• The remaining two fifths (42%) did not try to get an appointment with an NHS dentist in the last two years, 25% had never tried to get an NHS appointment and 16% had tried but over two years ago.
• Of those who had not tried to get an appointment:
  • 34% mentioned private dentistry as the reason for not trying to get an NHS appointment; 24% prefer private dentistry and 10% stayed when their dentist moved from NHS to private.
  • Just over a fifth (23%) of those patients who did not try stated they had “not needed to visit the dentist” as the reason for not attending.
  • 13% of the respondents who didn’t try to get an NHS dental appointment gave their reason as “I didn’t think I could get an NHS dental appointment”.

Additional Documents

Summary report

The accompanying report below provides a summary of the results, at a national and regional level, and gives comparisons to the previous two years where appropriate.  Further breakdowns of these figures can be found in the tables below.

GP Survey Dental Results Summary January to March 2021 (PDF, 285 KB)

Download data

For full results of the GP Patient Survey and the questions used, see the GP Patient Survey website.

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 (XLSX, 577KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 1 (csv, 31KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 2 (csv, 28KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 3 (csv, 6KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 4 (csv, 32KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 5 (csv, 203KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 6 (csv, 13KB)

GP Patient Survey Dental Results January to March 2021 Table 7 (csv, 26KB)