NHS dentists earned £96,000 in 2006/07, says The NHS Information Centre

Dentists earned £96,135 on average in 2006/07 says the Dental Earnings and Expenses report, out today from The NHS Information Centre.

The report is the first overview of dental earnings under the new dental contractual arrangements in England and Wales.

It considers the tax returns of full and part-time dentists who undertook some NHS work in England and Wales in 2006/7, and covers both their NHS and private work.

The report shows that in 2006/07:

  • average earnings (before tax) for all dentists was £96,135, with average gross earnings (including expenses) of £206,255 and average expenses of £110,120.
  • Practising dentists who held a contract with a Primary Care Trust (PCT)/Local Health Board (LHB) to provide NHS services earned on average £134,827 (before tax) with average gross earnings of £353,869 and average expenses of £219,042.

The report also showed that some of the practising dentists who held a contract with the PCT/LHB earned more than others:

  • Dentists who held General Dental Services (GDS) contract(s) earned on average £117,083.
  • Dentists who held Personal Dental Services (PDS) contract(s) earned on average £172,494.
  • Dentists who held mixed GDS/PDS contracts earned on average £199,545.

Other findings were:

  • Dentists working for a practice, but who are not contract holders, earned an average £69,442. Their average gross earnings were £104,417 and average expenses were £34,975.

The report also looks at earnings and expenses related to the working patterns of the dentist, their age and gender, their level of orthodontic activity and the Strategic Health Authority in which they work.

The findings will help the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body when they make their next set of recommendations on dental remuneration. Changes in the way figures have been produced mean it is difficult to compare the figures to those in previous years' reports.

The NHS Information Centre's chief executive Tim Straughan said: “The report looks at earnings in the first year of the new contractual system and reveals the pay of NHS dentists varies greatly depending on their contractual arrangements.”

The report is at: www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/dentalearnexp0607

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. Some elements of both the old and new contractual systems will be reflected in payments in 2006/07.
  3. The report was agreed by a joint working group made up of The NHS Information Centre, the Department of Health, the Welsh Assembly Government, the British Dental Association, the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body and the NHS Business Services Authority Dental Practice Division.
  4. The population is sourced from data provided by the Dental Services Division (DSD) of the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) with the initial inclusion criteria being those dentists who reported having undertaken NHS work during 2006/07. In some cases, a subsequent sample was determined from the results of a survey, the ‘NHS Business and Provider and Performer Arrangement Enquiry', administered to all dentists (who had some NHS activity recorded within 2006/07) across England and Wales. The source for the data in respect of earnings and expenses is the self assessment (SA) return held on 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 2006/07 by HMRC statisticians; only aggregated non disclosive data were supplied to the NHS IC

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