Publication of Family Practitioner Services General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2025/26

Publication of Family Practitioner Services General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2025/26

Date published:18 June 2026

The Health and Social Care’s Business Services Organisation (BSO) has today published its Family Practitioner Services (FPS) General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2025/26. This Accredited Official Statistics report contains high level summary information on activity and payments in relation to General Dental Services (GDS). Information is provided at NI level with further breakdowns presented at both Local Commissioning Group (LCG) and Local Government District (LGD) level.

The publication is available on the BSO’s website at General Dental Services Statistics – Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net)

Key Points:

The key points from the 2025/26 report are:

Dental Services

• In Northern Ireland, there were 351 dental practices with 1,180 dentists registered to carry out health service treatments at the end of March 2026. Registered dentists have increased by 9% over the last decade, with numbers reasonably stable between 2018 to 2022, before beginning to increase again, however a decrease of 2% was seen in the latest year. Note that dentist figures are headcount and take no account of differences in health service hours worked or changes to practitioner working patterns over time.
• The number of female dentists exceeds males, currently making up 62% of the workforce. In particular, the majority of younger dentists are female, with 76% of dentists aged under 35 being female while the reverse is true in the older age groups with 58% of dentists aged 50 and above being male.
• The number of registered patients is 95,000 lower than in March 2025, a decrease of 9%. Just under half (49%) of the population is registered with a health service dentist including just over two-thirds (67%) of children. The child registration rate has decreased by 2 percentage points compared to last year, while the adult registration rate has decreased by 6 percentage points to 44%, a level last seen back in 2009.
• Fermanagh and Omagh LGD has just 30% of its adult population registered with a health service dentist, 4 percentage points lower than any other LGD and 13 percentage points below the Northern Ireland average. It does, however, have a registration rate for children of 70%, 2 percentage points more than the Northern Ireland average.
• Females are more likely to be registered with a dentist (52% compared to 46% of males); this difference is particularly striking in the 18-44 age group with 48% of females registered compared to just 37% of males.
• At Northern Ireland level, 94% of the population live within five miles of a health service dental practice, with at least 88% of the population living within three miles in more urban LGDs. Proximity, however, does not necessarily mean that services will be accessible to new health service patients – this can vary across the year by individual practice.
• In 2025/26, there were approximately 823,000 treatment claims submitted and paid for adults, a decrease of 5% compared to last year. Looking at individual ‘Item of Service’ treatments within those claims, approximately 553,000 clinical examinations were performed on adults, a decrease of 4% compared to 2024/25. This represents a drop of 37% when compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019/20.
• Approximately 100,000 children received dental treatment in excess of the basic treatments, remaining relatively similar (-0.2%) compared to last year. This figure is down by 17% when compared to the pre-pandemic activity levels of 2019/20. Looking at individual ‘Item of Service’ treatments for those children, the most common SDR item claimed was for Colour Photographs, totalling approximately 22,000 claims. Colour Photographs were included on 16% of all claims for children, similar to the previous year.
• Overall, fillings decreased by 12%, and extractions decreased by 9% compared to 2024/25. For children, fillings decreased by 3% and extractions decreased by 5% over the same period.
• The Gross Cost of Dental Services was £134.4 million. Patient contributions (also included in the gross total) decreased from £22.7 million in 2024/25 to £22.2 million in the latest year.
• The average cost (GDS Fees) per head of child population was £97.50 in 2025/26, up from £92.80 in 2024/25, whilst for adults, the cost per head (including patient contributions) was almost £36.40, down from £38.80 in 2024/25.

Notes to editors:

1. This is the 7th year that GDS Statistics for Northern Ireland have been released as a standalone report. This information was previously included as part of the FPS compendiums published in 2017/18 and 2018/19. This report was produced by the Health and Social Care’s BSO which was specified as an Official Statistics producer body under the Official Statistics Order (Northern Ireland) 2012. It provides the definitive source of figures on BSO FPS GDS activity and finalises the provisional quarterly figures which have been released over the course of 2025/26.
2. These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in May 2022. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. All accredited official statistics should comply with all aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics. The OSR considers whether the statistics meet the highest standards of Code compliance, including the value they add to public decisions and debate. These statistics were considered as part of a wider assessment of the BSO FPS statistics.
3. FPS is responsible for annual payments to primary care contractors including GP Practices, Dentists, Opticians and Community Pharmacists on behalf of the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG). In 2025/26 this figure was over £1.1 billion.
4. The data relate to BSO’s GDS payment and volumes claimed and have been sourced from administrative systems. It is important to note that, unless otherwise stated, figures relate to the year in which a payment claim was processed by BSO and this may not necessarily coincide with when the actual activity took place (i.e., some claims from a previous year may be processed in the current year whilst, conversely, some claims relating to activity in the current year may not be processed until a later year). Dental activity figures do not cover private work or secondary care activity. All percentages and costs are calculated based on unrounded figures.
5. Primary care statistics on the number of dental practitioners are taken from lists of performers registered to provide these services. The lists maintained by BSO provide a headcount rather than full-time equivalent figures so take no account of differences in health service hours worked or changes to practitioner working patterns over time.
6. Whilst a number of UK comparisons have been included in the report, there can be important differences in how services are delivered between countries that can impact on the figures. The relative size of the private sector in the delivery of primary care services within each country will be a particularly important factor in this regard so care needs to be taken when interpreting any inter-country differences in HSC activity levels.
7. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, all registrations that were due to expire during 2020/21 and 2022/23 were extended throughout these years. The first set of patients expired at the end of March 2023. In order to avoid the scenario where a large number of patient registrations lapse in one go, the GDS regulations were amended to add a specific number of months on to three patient registration cohorts, so that registrations are scheduled to lapse at the same rate as they would normally. This process has now completed. In addition, a Enhanced Children’s Examination (ECE) Scheme ran from 1 January 2023 to 30th June 2023 as a dedicated scheme to improve access to dental care for unregistered patients aged 0-10 years. The aim was to address the decrease in registration levels for young children following the pandemic. This scheme was re-introduced from the 10 June 2024, in order to encourage early registration with a dentist, and in doing so provide an opportunity for early preventive interventions.
8. Many people qualify for a free dental treatment including those in receipt of certain adult income-related passport benefits (Dental Charges & Fees – Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website). Eligibility criteria can change over time and this can impact activity trends. A recent example would be the removal of the requirement, from 1st December 2025, for those in receipt of Universal Credit (subject to earnings threshold) to also have a valid HC2 certificate (provided through the NHS Low Income Scheme).
9. The cost of primary care dental services is based on the annual assurance information supplied by BSO to the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) for each financial year.
10. GDS Fees exclude payments made to practices in relation to the Rebuilding Support Scheme and provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), as well as other adjustments which cannot be assigned to adults or children.
11. The report itself presents high level summary information with all of the detailed data tables consigned to the accompanying Excel appendices. The figures are prepared and released by independent NISRA statisticians working within BSO’s FPS Information Unit.
12. Quarterly updates for 2026/27, for key report tables, will be released on a provisional basis on the FPS section of the BSO website General Dental Services Statistics – Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net). These will be added to the historic quarterly series. The timetable for the release of the quarterly updates will also be published on the BSO website and all publications, both quarterly and annual, will be formally announced on the UK.Gov release calendar
13. Electronic copies of the Bulletin and associated Excel tables are available free of charge from: General Dental Services Statistics – Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net).
14. Accredited Official Statistics:

• These are Accredited Official Statistics and therefore comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

15. Further Information:For further information please contact:Information UnitFamily Practitioner ServicesBusiness Services Organisation2 Franklin StreetBelfast BT2 8DQBSO_PrimaryCare.Statistics@hscni.net

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