Dental Services: Hospitals

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including National Health Service dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England.

We have asked ICBs to commission extra urgent dental appointments to make sure that patients with urgent dental needs can get the treatment they require, therefore reducing the need for patients to go to Accident and Emergency for dental treatment unless necessary. ICBs have been making extra appointments available from April 2025.

Appointments are available across the country, with specific expectations for each region. These appointments are more heavily weighted towards those areas where they are needed the most.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As a first step, on 16 December we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on interim improvements to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. More information is available from the GOV.UK website, at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms