Background

This publication is to report the findings of a data collection on the dental workforce in England. All dental providers in England who held either a General Dental Services (GDS) contract or Personal Dental Services (PDS) agreement to provide NHS care during the period covered by the collection were asked to provide data. The collection was carried out in May 2024 covering data as at the end of March 2024. 

This publication aims to help understand the facilities available and numbers of staff across a range of professions involved in NHS dental care. It also aims to illustrate providers’ experience in recruitment, retention and the occurrence of long term absences. 

Exploratory collections were carried out in October 2023 covering two separate time periods (October 2022 – March 2023 and April 2023 – September 2023). Data from these collections are included in this publication where comparable.

Feedback from respondents allowed us to improve the March 2024 collection to provide more useful information. 

The publication is classed as ‘Management Information’. This is the first set of statistics published using data from this collection so it should be used with caution. We welcome feedback which will allow us to improve this work and potentially raise the status of the publication to Official Statistics in the future. 

Future collections will be carried out each year as we reschedule to an annual collection in response to feedback. 

Data

NHS Dental Workforce March 2024 tables

NHS Dental Workforce Survey Statistics March 2024 – accompanying information

Pre-release Access List

Contact

For further information about this publication please contact england.primarycare.phodsdata@nhs.net.