NHS dental fees are being hiked by another 4 per cent in April in a ‘slap in the face’ for patients.
It means the price of a basic check-up will rise from £25.80 to £26.80.
Meanwhile fillings will become an extra £3, with patients charged £73.50 instead of the current £70.70.
The most complicated treatment, such as dentures, will cost another £12.30 — with it now being priced at £319.10, up from £306.80.
The British Dental Association said the charges won’t ‘bring NHS dentistry back from the brink’ and that hard-pressed families will be forced to ‘pay more for less’.
NHS dental treatment prices are set to rise from April 1 this year
It comes amid an NHS dental crisis, with millions of patients in England struggling to access state-subsidised dental care.
Desperate Brits have queued from 4am for limited 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 incoming price hike, the cost of NHS treatment will still be cheaper than going.
Basic check-ups at private check-ups can cost upwards of £75. Crowns can cost up to around £800.
Shawn Charlwood, chair of the British Dental Association’s (BDA) general dental practice, said: ‘This latest hike is another slap in the face for hard-pressed families across England.
‘This won’t put a penny in to bring NHS dentistry back from the brink.
‘The Government is asking the public to pay more for less of a service.’
Mr Charlwood demanded ministers explain why they hadn’t taken a similar approach to Wales and kept prices of NHS treatment down.
The price of NHS dental treatment across the border can be almost half that in England.
Basic NHS dental check-ups in Wales cost just £14.70, while getting crowns closer to £200.
Mr Charlwood said: ‘Ministers need to explain why patients in England are expected to pay £100 more than their Welsh cousins for identical NHS treatment.’
The BDA warned price rises can have real-world impacts on Brits oral health.
A poll conducted by the union last year found nearly one in four Brits surveyed had delayed or gone without dental care due to the price.
Responding to the BDA’s comments a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We provide a wide range of support to ensure everyone who needs dental care can afford it.’
‘Over 47 per cent of people are eligible for free dental care and last year the NHS delivered over 15.4 million courses of free treatment under these exemptions, including children, those on low incomes and pregnant women.
‘Where charges do apply, it is important they are updated to reflect increases in the cost of delivering NHS dental care.’
Only a limited number of Brits are entitled to completely free NHS care — everyone else has to pay.
Those that get free treatment include children, pregnant women and new mothers, and people on some benefits.
Last month, the Government finally unveiled its long-awaited NHS dental recovery plan, with the goal of ‘putting NHS dentistry on a sustainable footing’.
The crisis in NHS dentistry has been brewing for years, with some Brits forced to pull out their own teeth with pliers or travel abroad to see a dentist due to a lack of slots in the UK. Others have queued from 4am to gain a spot at dentistry practices that have opened up their list to NHS patients. Pictured, the line of people outside of Saint Pauls Dental Practice, in St Paul’s, Bristol, which police were forced to break up last month
Despite queuing for hours patients were met with a sign on the door saying: ‘We are not enrolling anymore patients.’ Pictured, the sign outside St Pauls Dental Practice earlier this week
Under PM Rishi Sunak’s bold blueprint to fix the appointments crisis plaguing millions, dentists will be offered up to £50 to see patients who haven’t had a check-up in the last two years.
Additionally, up to 240 dentists willing to relocate to ‘dental deserts’ will be paid a £20,000 ‘golden hello’.
The Government is also planning to controversially add fluoride to the drinking water of millions of Brits in a bid to passively protect their oral health.
But the overall plan — unveiled 10 months after it was promised — was slammed by dental bosses and politicians for not going far enough.
The BDA has said that it amounted to ‘rearranging the deckchairs’ and it won’t bring the desired, and much-needed, change.
Health leaders instead called for ‘radical reform’ of the NHS dental contract, accusing Mr Sunak of U-turning on his pledge to restore the crippled industry.
Figures show 24,151 dentists took on NHS work in England in 2022-23, down from 24,272 in the previous financial year – a drop of 121 year-on-year.
The total is also roughly 500 fewer than the number of dentists carrying out health service work in 2019-20, the last year before the Covid pandemic struck.
The BDA fears numbers could drop even further to below 24,000, a figure not recorded since 2014-15.
Experts have also raised the terrifying prospect that cases of mouth cancer, which are typically spotted in their earliest, and most treatable, stages during routine dental check-ups, are going missed due to the appointments crisis.
