The cost of a visit to the dentist in Bristol has gone up by almost a quarter in the last two years, according to new figures released today.
The cost of some procedures has risen by more than £100 in the time between 2022 and 2024, and the inflation-busting price hikes have further highlighted the issue of a lack of NHS dentist places and practices in Bristol.
Almost a year ago, the crisis in NHS dentistry in Bristol made national news after an NHS dentist practice reopened in St Pauls, leading to people queuing around the block for hours to sign up as a patient.
The then shadow health secretary Wes Streeting – now the man in charge of the NHS – visited the queue and promised a Labour Government would act to solve the problem, but the new statistics show that the costs of having to go private are rocketing.
Figures researched by MyTribe Insurance showed that the median cost – that’s the middle price of a range of different amounts charged by Bristol’s dentist practices – of a routine check up for an existing patient has gone up from £43.50 to £53.75 between 2022 and 2024, that’s a rise of almost a quarter.
The median cost of an initial consultation for a new patient has gone up from £77 to £90, and a routine 30-minute scale and polish treatment has risen from £66 to £81, an increase of almost 23 per cent.
More complex procedures have increased too. A single white filling now costs a median average of £140, up by 17 per cent from two years ago, while an anterior root canal jumped from £450 to £522 in the past two years. The national median cost of that treatment in the rest of the country is around £400, which MyTribe said indicates that dentists in Bristol are charging more than the national or regional average for more involved procedures because of the shortage of NHS alternatives.
Many people with dental problems are not having any dental work done at all, because NHS treatment is hard to access in Bristol, and private treatment is becoming so expensive, rising much faster than the rate of general inflation, and faster than wage increases.
“For patients struggling to access NHS dental care, and for those who choose to go private, the dramatic rise in private dental costs places essential care out of reach for many,” Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association, told The Guardian.
“This creates a dangerous cycle where patients bounce between an inaccessible NHS system and unaffordable private care, while their oral health deteriorates. The stark reality is that many are left with no viable route to essential dental treatment,” she added.
There have been some moves to increase the number of NHS dentist places in Bristol. The new University of Bristol campus at Temple Meads, which is still largely being built, already includes an open and fully functioning Dental School, which opened in September 2023 and includes 119 dentist’s chairs.
In Bedminster, a private dental practice has announced it hopes to move into a new development in the space of an empty bank, and double in size – which will mean a doubling of the number of NHS patients it can register.
But there is still a dire shortage of NHS dentists in the city – and one way that has manifested itself is in the number of dental emergencies, caused by people not getting regular dental treatment and only having to when it’s an emergency. Back in November 2023, the NHS said it had seen more than 1,000 dental emergencies in just the previous year alone, and last year, Bristol Live revealed that almost all private dentist practices in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset were no longer taking on new NHS patients, even though they are listed on the NHS’ website.
Of the 98 practices on the NHS’s ‘Find a Dentist’ website, 83 said they were already full and were no longer taking on adults onto the NHS list. MPs have demanded action. In November, Carla Denyer (Green, Bristol Central) joined other local MPs in calling for the Government to switch to a model similar to GPs, which would mean everyone – in theory – could access dentistry on the NHS.
The Government minister responsible, Stephen Kinnock, acknowledged the severe state of NHS dentistry, which he described as ‘nothing short of Dickensian’. South Gloucestershire MP Claire Young (Lib Dem, Thornbury & Yate ), said that it was not just an issue affecting adults. More than half the children in South Gloucestershire – 58 per cent – did not see an NHS dentist in the last year, she said, criticising the current NHS dental contract, describing it as a key factor in pushing dentists away from NHS work, even for children.
“The last Conservative government failed to fix the broken contract, and the new government have yet to show that they grasp the scale of the challenge,” she stated, calling for an “emergency rescue plan” to increase appointment availability.