The NHS Information Centre today published Dental Earnings and Expenses, England and Wales 2008/09, detailing dentists' pay.

The report considers only the self employed earnings and expenses of full and part-time primary care dentists who undertook some NHS work in England or Wales in the year, and covers both their NHS and private income.

It shows that in 2008/09:

• All self-employed dentists earned on average £89,600 (before tax), compared to £89,100 in 2007/08.
• Practising dentists who held a contract with a Primary Care Trust (PCT in England) or Local Health Board (LHB in Wales) to provide NHS dental services earned on average £131,000 (before tax) - up 3.3 per cent from £126,800 in 2007/08.
• The average gross earnings of these practising dentists who held a contract with a PCT or LHB was £366,500 – up 6.0 per cent from £345,700 in 2007/08 – with average expenses of £235,500, up 7.6 per cent from £218,800.
• Dentists who worked in a practice but who did not hold a contract with a PCT or LHB, earned on average £67,800 (before tax) – up 3.1 per cent on 2007/08 when they earned £65,700. The report also looks at earnings and expenses by the working patterns of the dentists, their age and gender, their level of orthodontic activity and the Strategic Health Authority in which they worked.

NHS Information Centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: “The England and Wales report reveals that the average earnings of NHS dentists varied greatly depending on whether they personally held a contract with a Primary Care Trust or Local Health Board”

The report for England and Wales is at: www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/dentalearnexp0809

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The NHS Information Centre is England's authoritative, independent source of health and social care information. It works with more than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researchers, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS Information Centre also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.
2. A new dental contract was introduced in England and Wales on 1st April 2006. One element of the new contractual arrangements was a move away from paying dentists for individual treatment items to a system whereby dentists are remunerated for an agreed level of dental activity. They have moved away from a retrospective payment system to one which they are paid in monthly instalments. The timing of payments made to some dentists following the introduction of the new contractual arrangements had a one-off effect on earnings in 2006/07.
3. The report for England and Wales was agreed by a joint working group made up of The NHS Information Centre, and representatives from the Department of Health, the Welsh Assembly Government, the British Dental Association, the Secretariat for the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body, the NHS Business Services Authority Dental Services, and the National Association of Specialist Dental Accountants.
4. In the report, results are displayed for Providing-Performer dentists, who contract with Primary Care Trusts or Local Health Boards to provide an agreed level of dental services and also perform dental services, and for Performer Only dentists, who perform dental services but do not hold a contract with a Primary Care Trust or Local Health Board. Average earnings before tax are made up of gross earnings less expenses.
5. The population is sourced from data provided by NHS Dental Services, with the initial inclusion criteria being those dentists who reported having undertaken NHS work during 2008/09. In some cases, a subsequent sample was determined from the results of the ‘Dental Working Patterns' survey, administered to all dentists (who had some NHS activity recorded within 2008/09 or 2009/10) across England and Wales. The source for the data in respect of earnings and expenses is the self assessment (SA) tax return held on the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) SA system, which covers earnings from all self-employed sources, including private practice. Analyses were carried out on an anonymised tax data for dentists with an accounting year ending in the final quarter of 2008/09 by HMRC statisticians; only aggregated non disclosive data were supplied to the NHS IC.
6. For media enquiries please call 0845 257 6990 or contact Sarah Dahlgren on 0113 254 7272 (sarah.dahlgren@ic.nhs.uk)