The ‘Accredited Official Statistics’ report contains high-level summary information on activity and payments related to General Dental Services (GDS). Information is provided at the NI level, with further breakdowns presented at both the Local Commissioning Group (LCG) and the Local Government District (LGD) levels.
The publication is available on the Business Services Organisation’s website.
The key points from the 2023/24 report are:
Workforce
- In Northern Ireland, there were 364 dental practices with 1,195 dentists registered to carry out health service treatments at the end of March 2024.
- Registered dentists have increased by 13 per cent over the last decade, with numbers reasonably stable between 2018 to 2022, before beginning to increase again, with a three per cent rise in the latest year.
- At the Northern Ireland level, 94 per cent of the population live within five miles of a health service dental practice, with at least 88 per cent of the population living within three miles in more urban LGDs.
- The number of female dentists exceeds males, currently making up 60 per cent of the workforce. In particular, most younger dentists are female, with 70 per cent of dentists aged under 35 being female. The reverse is true in the older age groups, with 59 per cent of dentists aged 50 and above being male.
Patient registrations
- Over two-thirds (68 per cent) of the population are registered with a health service dentist, including just over three-quarters (76 per cent) of children. The proportion of children registered has remained stable compared to last year, whereas the adult registration rate has decreased by three percentage points.
- Fermanagh and Omagh LGD has less than half (49 per cent) of its adult population registered with a health service dentist, at least 11 percentage points lower than any other LGD. It does, however, have a registration rate for children of 78 per cent, which is a little above, by two percentage points, the Northern Ireland average.
- Females are more likely to be registered with a dentist (71 per cent compared to 65 per cent of males); this difference is particularly striking in the 18-44 age group, with 74 per cent of females registered compared to just 63 per cent of males.
Treatments
- Looking at individual ‘Item of Service’ treatments, approximately 543,000 clinical examinations were performed on adults, an increase of 17 per cent on 2022/23. However, this still represents a drop of 39 per cent when compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019/20.
- Approximately 97,000 children received dental treatment in excess of the basic treatments, similar to last year. This figure is down by 20 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic activity levels.
- Fillings decreased by five per cent, and extractions by six per cent, overall compared to 2022/23. For children, the pattern was similar with fillings, decreasing by seven per cent, but extractions increased by five per cent over the same period.
- During 2022/23, the latest year for which comparative figures are available, NI dentists filled significantly more teeth (just under 36,000) per 100,000 population than in other UK regions. Since 2014/15, NI has consistently had the highest number of fillings per head of population of the four regions. Government initiatives and differential uptake of private dentistry may help explain some of the observed inter-country differences.
Costs
- The Gross Cost of Dental Services was £121.6m. Patient contributions (also included in the gross total) rose from £20.4m in 2022/23 to £21.4m in the latest year.
- The average cost (GDS Fees) per head of child population was £81 in 2023/24, up from £79 in 2022/23, whilst for adults, the cost per head (including patient contributions) was £39, a small increase on the £38 recorded in the previous year.