NHS dental charges are set to rise by a further 4 per cent in April in a ‘slap in the face’ for patients.
This means that the price of a basic check increases from €25.80 to €26.80.
Meanwhile, refills will cost an extra £3, with patients having to pay £73.50 instead of the current £70.70.
The most complicated treatment, such as dentures, costs a further £12.30 – now costing £319.10, an increase from £306.80.
The British Dental Association said the charges ‘will not bring NHS dentistry back from the brink’ and will force families in need to ‘pay more for less’.
Prices for NHS dental treatments will rise from April 1 this year
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It comes amid a dental crisis in the NHS, with millions of patients in England struggling to access state-subsidized dental care.
Desperate Brits are queuing from 4am for a limited number of NHS appointments, while others have flown to war-torn Ukraine for cheaper private dentistry.
Some have even resorted to DIY dentistry at home.
Despite the coming price rises, the cost of NHS treatment will still be cheaper than that of treatment.
Basic private check-ups can cost more than $75. Crowns can cost up to around £800.
Shawn Charlwood, chairman of the British Dental Association (BDA) General Dental Practice, said: ‘This latest increase is another slap in the face for families in need across England.
‘This won’t cost a cent to bring NHS dentistry back from the brink.
‘The government is asking the public to pay more for a lesser service.’
Mr Charlwood demanded ministers explain why they had not taken a similar approach for Wales and kept the prices of NHS treatments low.
The price of NHS dental treatment across the border can be almost half of that in England.
Basic NHS dental checks in Wales cost just £14.70, while crowns come in closer to £200.
Mr Charlwood said: ‘Ministers must explain why patients in England are expected to pay £100 more than their Welsh cousins for identical NHS treatment.’
The BDA warned that price rises could have real consequences for British oral health.
A poll by the union last year found that almost one in four Brits surveyed had postponed or foregone dental care because of the price.
In response to the BDA’s comments, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘We provide a wide range of support to ensure that anyone who needs dental care can afford it.’
‘More than 47 per cent of people qualify for free dental care and last year the NHS provided more than 15.4 million free courses of treatment under these exemptions, including children, people on low incomes and pregnant women.
‘Where charges do occur, it is important that these are updated to reflect the increase in the cost of delivering dental care by the NHS.’
Only a limited number of Britons are entitled to completely free NHS care – everyone else has to pay.
Those receiving free treatment include children, pregnant women and new mothers, and people on certain benefits.
Last month the government finally unveiled its long-awaited NHS dental recovery plan, which aims to ‘put NHS dentistry on a sustainable footing’.
The NHS dentistry crisis has been going on for years, with some Britons forced to pull out their own teeth with pliers or travel abroad to visit a dentist due to a lack of places in Britain . Others are queuing from 4am to get a spot at dental practices that have opened their lists to NHS patients. Pictured is the queue of people outside Saint Pauls dental surgery in St Paul’s, Bristol, which police had to break up last month
Despite waiting in line for hours, patients were given a sign on the door that read: “We are no longer registering patients.” Pictured is the sign outside St Pauls Dental Practice earlier this week
Under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s bold blueprint to solve the appointment crisis affecting millions, dentists will be offered up to £50 to see patients who have not had a check-up in the past two years.
In addition, up to 240 dentists willing to relocate to ‘dental deserts’ will receive a ‘golden hello’ of £20,000.
The government is also planning to controversially add fluoride to the drinking water of millions of Britons in a bid to passively protect their oral health.
But the overall plan – unveiled ten months after it was promised – was rejected by dental bosses and politicians as not going far enough.
The BDA has said that this amounts to ‘rearranging the deckchairs’ and will not bring the desired and much-needed change.
Healthcare leaders instead called for “radical reform” of the NHS dental contract, accusing Mr Sunak of reversing his pledge to fix the crippled industry.
Figures show that 24,151 dentists took on NHS work in England in the 2022-2023 period, compared to 24,272 in the previous financial year – a decrease of 121 year-on-year.
The total is also around 500 fewer than the number of dentists doing healthcare work in 2019-20, the last year before the Covid pandemic hit.
The BDA fears numbers could fall further to below 24,000, a figure not recorded since 2014-15.
Experts have also raised the frightening prospect that cases of oral cancer, which are usually discovered at the earliest and most treatable stages during routine dental check-ups, will be missed as a result of the appointment crisis.