NHS dental services: April to June 2024
Number of patients receiving NHS dental treatment, the type of treatments provided and the numbers of NHS dentists for April to June 2024.
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Background
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that adults are recalled for dental check-ups at intervals of 3 months to 24 months depending on the individual’s oral health status. The guidance also recommends that the longest recall period for children (aged under 18) is no longer than 12 months.
Therefore, statistics on adults treated are based on the previous 24-month period; statistics for children refer to the previous 12-month period.
Each patient is counted only once in the patients treated data even if they have received multiple episodes of care during the reference period. All courses of treatment are counted in the activity measure, even if the same patient had multiple treatments.
Patients may be treated outside of their resident health board and orthodontic patients are included.
Summary
Over the last year, the number of Welsh resident patients treated by an NHS dentist and overall dental activity performed by NHS dental practices in Wales has increased modestly.
While both the percentage of patients treated and activity levels continue to increase, the rate of increase is not as high as in previous quarters and the level for both measures is below the levels prior to the pandemic.
Note that while the pandemic affected dental treatments for both adults and children in a similar way, the percentage of adults treated took longer to reach its low point during the pandemic and did not fall as low as the percentage of children treated at the height of the pandemic. This is because adults are measured over a 24-month period, so adult patients treated in the months preceding the pandemic would still be counted in the adult measure for four quarters longer than children treated in the same period.
Main points
Patients treated in a 12 and 24-month period
Data refers to Welsh resident patients treated at NHS dental practices in Wales and England only. Any non-Welsh resident patients treated in Wales are not included in this measure but are included on separate StatsWales table showing data for all patients treated in Wales.
Figure 1: Percentage of the adult and child populations treated in rolling 24-month and 12-month periods, 30 June 2019 to 30 June 2024 [Note 1]
Source: FP17W form, NHS Business Services Authority; mid-year population estimates, Office for National Statistics
[Note 1] Adults refers to people aged 18 years or older. Children refers to people aged 0 to 17 years.
Welsh resident children treated in a 12-month period by local health board (StatsWales)
Welsh resident adults treated in a 24-month period by local health board (StatsWales)
- Treatments were recorded for more than 1 million (1,038,006) adults in the 24-month period ending 30 June 2024. This is equivalent to 40.8% of the adult population and is 1.2 percentage points higher than in the 24-month period ending 30 June 2023.
- Treatments were recorded for nearly 285,000 children (284,529) in the 12-month period ending 30 June 2024. This is equivalent to 45.9% of the child population and is 1.0 percentage points higher than in the 12-month period ending 30 June 2023.
Activity
Data refers to all courses of treatment provided to NHS patients by NHS dental practices in Wales. It included treatments provided to non-Welsh patients but does not include any privately funded treatments.
Figure 2: Number of courses of treatment by quarter, quarter ending June 2015 to quarter ending June 2024
Description of Figure 3: Line chart showing that the number of courses of treatment followed a marginally upward trend with quarterly variations until January-March 2020, followed by a very sharp decrease in the period April-June 2020 when services stopped due to the pandemic. Since then, courses of treatment have increased, but the rate of increase has been lower than in previous quarters.
Source: FP17W form, NHS Business Services Authority
Number of courses of treatment by quarter ending March each year (StatsWales)
- During the quarter April to June 2024, there were nearly 357,000 individual NHS dental courses of treatment delivered to both adults and children. This is an increase of 4.7% compared to the same period last year.
- The number of courses of treatment in the quarter April to June 2024 was just over a third (36.7%) lower than the number in the last quarter largely unaffected by the pandemic (January to March 2020).
Note that data for all quarters in 2024-25 will be revised at the year end.
