NHS dentistry 2025: more got an appointment, fewer tried

The share of adults who have never tried NHS dentistry rose 1.4pp to 29.0%, a statistically significant rise. For commissioners, that is the number to carry into the 2026 wave. It grew in the same year that adults who did get an NHS dental appointment rated the experience more highly than in 2024.

The "fairly good" middle barely shifted, up 0.2 percentage points to 28.8% and not statistically significant. The movement was all at the ends, 1.4 points onto "very good" and 1.3 points off "very poor": people formed a firmer view than the year before, and more often a positive one. The fall in the "very poor" share held across all seven English commissioning regions, so it looks like a genuine shift rather than one area's quirk.

One measure moved the other way: the share who said they would return to the same practice slipped 0.4 percentage points to 84.0%, and the share answering "I can't remember" to that question rose 0.3 points to 4.6%. Both moves are statistically significant, and at 0.4pp and 0.3pp both are small enough to watch rather than read too much into.

In the South West, 20.2% rated their most recent NHS dental appointment "very poor", against 7.2% in London, a gap of 13.0pp. That is the widest gap between any two regions on this measure, and the South West is the only region above one in six. The next highest, the East of England and the North East and Yorkshire, are both at 12.8%.

Two things happened in 2025. Among adults who tried to get an NHS dental appointment, more got one: 78.1%, up 1.8pp. Among all adults, fewer tried at all: 51.2% had tried in the last two years, down 1.2pp. Section 4 covers the reasons adults gave for not trying.

The share choosing "on a waiting list" as their reason rose 0.3 percentage points nationally to 4.0%, a small but statistically significant increase. Five ICS areas moved much further than that. Humber and North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were both up 2.2 points, Lancashire and South Cumbria 1.8, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly 1.6, and Northamptonshire 1.3. The table below lists those five in order.

The share choosing "didn't think could get NHS appointment" rose 1.4pp, while the three reasons the survey records for actually being turned away all fell. That second number matters, because it moved in the opposite direction to what was happening: in the same year that this doubt grew, 78.1% of the adults who did try got an appointment.

The GP Patient Survey measures belief, not availability: the 1.4pp rise records what adults thought they could get, not whether appointments were genuinely harder to come by. Success among adults who did try rose 1.8pp over the same year, so belief moved against the facts. That points at communication rather than supply: NHS England's guidance sets out what patients are entitled to and how to find an NHS dentist, and the NHS practice finder lists which practices are taking new patients. For commissioners the signal is a perception gap: adults who assume the door is shut never reach the NHS practice finder that would tell them otherwise.

Per Rare.Monitor's read of the GP Patient Survey, the South West ranks last of the seven regions in 2025 on all four dental measures the survey reports by region: the share rating overall experience "good", the share who tried and got an appointment, the share rating their appointment "very poor", and the share choosing "didn't think could get NHS appointment".

It has the lowest share rating overall experience "good" at 60.7%, 12.5pp behind the Midlands, and the lowest share getting an appointment at 66.3%, 15.1pp behind London's 81.4%. It also has the highest share rating their appointment "very poor", at 20.2%, and the highest share choosing "didn't think could get NHS appointment", at 31.3%.

The gap between the South West and the best-performing region widened on all three of the measures where both years are comparable. On the share who got an appointment it moved from 14.1 to 15.1pp. On the share rating overall experience "good" it moved from 11.7 to 12.5pp. On the share rating their appointment "very poor" it moved from 12.4 to 13.0pp. Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset are the ICS areas inside the South West to watch most closely.

The chart above ranks all seven English commissioning regions on the measures asked of adults who had an appointment. Six of them sit within 3.0pp of each other on the share rating overall experience "good", from 70.2% to 73.2%. The South West sits 9.4pp below the next lowest of those six.

London has the highest non-user share of the seven regions and the best experience for those who do use it

London has the highest share of adults who have never tried NHS dentistry, at 36.6%, and the best figures of the seven regions on the measures asked of adults who do use it. 81.4% of Londoners who tried got an appointment, the highest of the seven, and 7.2% rated that appointment "very poor", the fewest of the seven regions.

Its share rating overall experience "good" is 72.6%, second only to the Midlands at 73.2%. Among Londoners who had not tried in the last two years, 22.5% chose "haven't needed to visit" and 7.1% chose "NHS dental care too expensive". Londoners who stay away are the most likely of the seven regions to give either reason.

Two regions pose opposite questions, split by 13.0pp on "very poor" ratings. In the South West, adults who use NHS dentistry rate it lowest of the seven regions and are least likely of the seven to get an appointment, and both gaps widened between 2024 and 2025. In London, adults rate it among the best of the seven, and 36.6% have never tried it.

For commissioners, the South West question is about service quality, where only 66.3% of those who tried got an appointment; the London question is about reach, where 36.6% have never tried at all.

Per Rare.Monitor's analysis of the GP Patient Survey, the tables below show the largest movers between 2024 and 2025 on seven dental measures, at both ICS and PCN level. PCNs with fewer than 100 respondents in either year are excluded. These are the places to look at first when the 2026 figures arrive.

Two PCNs appear among the largest declines on more than one measure: Bournemouth East Collaborative and Moreton and Meols, on overall experience and on the share who got an appointment. Those are the networks to look at first when the 2026 figures arrive. Gloucestershire moved the other way, up 7.9pp on overall experience and 9.2pp on the share who got an appointment, with Kent and Medway up 3.9pp and 5.4pp. An ICS can move that far in a single year.