Summary

This report considers NHS dental activity and workforce in 2008/09, the third year of the new dental contract system.

Key facts

• dentists performed 37.4 million Courses of Treatment (CoTs) in 2008/09, a 4.0 per cent increase (1.4 million) on 2007/08
• this equates to 81.4 million Units of Dental Activity (UDA), a 5.7 per cent increase (4.4 million) on 2007/08
• this represented 159,000 UDAs per 100,000 of the population
• 53.8 per cent of the population (27.5 million people) saw an NHS dentist in the 24 month period ending 31 March 2009, a 0.4 percentage point increase compared to the 24 month period ending 31 December 2008
• 21,343 dentists performed some NHS activity during 2008/09, a 2.5 per cent increase (528) on 2007/08.