Publication of Family Practitioner Services General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2023/24

The Health and Social Care’s Business Services Organisation (BSO) has today published its Family Practitioner Services General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2023/24. This Accredited Official Statistics report contains high level summary information on activity and payments in relation to General Dental Services (GDS). Information is provided at NI level with further breakdowns presented at both Local Commissioning Group (LCG) and Local Government District (LGD) level.

The Health and Social Care’s Business Services Organisation (BSO) has today published its Family Practitioner Services General Dental Statistics for Northern Ireland 2023/24. This Accredited Official Statistics report contains high level summary information on activity and payments in relation to General Dental Services (GDS). Information is provided at NI level with further breakdowns presented at both Local Commissioning Group (LCG) and Local Government District (LGD) level.

The publication is available on the Business Services Organisation’s website at General Dental Services Statistics - Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net)

KEY POINTS

The key points from the 2023/24 report are:

Dental Services

• In Northern Ireland, there were 364 dental practices with 1,195 dentists registered to carry out health service treatments at the end of March 2024. Registered dentists have increased by 13% over the last decade, with numbers reasonably stable between 2018 to 2022, before beginning to increase again, with a 3% rise in the latest year.
• At Northern Ireland level, 94% of the population live within five miles of a health service dental practice, with at least 88% of the population living within three miles in more urban LGDs.

• The number of female dentists exceeds males, currently making up 60% of the workforce. In particular, the majority of younger dentists are female, with 70% of dentists aged under 35 being female while the reverse is true in the older age groups with 59% of dentists aged 50 and above being male.

• Over two-thirds (68%) of the population is registered with a health service dentist including just over three-quarters (76%) of children. The proportion of children registered has remained stable compared to last year, whereas the adult registration rate has decreased by 3 percentage points.

• Fermanagh and Omagh LGD has less than half (49%) of its adult population registered with a health service dentist, at least 11 percentage points lower than any other LGD. It does, however, have a registration rate for children of 78% that is a little above, by 2 percentage points, the Northern Ireland average.

• Females are more likely to be registered with a dentist (71% compared to 65% of males); this difference is particularly striking in the 18-44 age group with 74% of females registered compared to just 63% of males.

• Looking at individual ‘Item of Service’ treatments, approximately 543,000 clinical examinations were performed on adults, an increase of 17% on 2022/23. However, this still represents a drop of 39% when compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019/20.

• Approximately 97,000 children received dental treatment in excess of the basic treatments, similar to last year. This figure is down by 20% when compared to the pre-pandemic activity levels.

• Fillings decreased by 5%, and extractions by 6%, overall compared to 2022/23. For children, the pattern was similar with fillings, decreasing by 7%, but extractions increased by 5% over the same period.

• During 2022/23, the latest year for which comparative figures are available, NI dentists filled significantly more teeth (just under 36,000) per 100,000 population than any of the other UK regions. Since 2014/15, NI has consistently had the highest number of fillings per head of population of the four regions. Government initiatives and differential uptake of private dentistry may help explain some of the observed inter-country differences.

• The Gross Cost of Dental Services was £121.6 million. Patient contributions (also included in the gross total) rose from £20.4 million in 2022/23 to £21.4 million in the latest year.

• The average cost (GDS Fees) per head of child population was £81 in 2023/24, up from £79 in 2022/23, whilst for adults, the cost per head (including patient contributions) was £39, a small increase on the £38 recorded in the previous year.

Notes to editors: 

1. This is the fifth year that General Dental Services Statistics for Northern Ireland has been released as a standalone report.  This information was previously included as part of the FPS compendiums published in 2017/18 and 2018/19. This report was produced by the Health and Social Care’s Business Services Organisation (BSO) which was specified as an Official Statistics producer body under the Official Statistics Order (Northern Ireland) 2012. It provides the definitive source of figures on BSO FPS General Dental Services activity and finalises the provisional quarterly figures which have been released over the course of 2023/24.
2. These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in May 2022. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. All accredited official statistics should comply with all aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics. The OSR considers whether the statistics meet the highest standards of Code compliance, including the value they add to public decisions and debate. These statistics were considered as part of a wider assessment of the BSO Family Practitioner Services statistics.
3. Family Practitioner Services (FPS) is responsible for annual payments to primary care contractors including GP Practices, Dentists, Opticians and Community Pharmacists on behalf of the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG). In 2023/24 this figure was over £973 million.
4. The data relate to BSO’s General Dental Services payment and volumes claimed and have been sourced from administrative systems. It is important to note that, unless otherwise stated, figures relate to the year in which a payment claim was processed by BSO and this may not necessarily coincide with when the actual activity took place (i.e., some claims from a previous year may be processed in the current year whilst, conversely, some claims relating to activity in the current year may not be processed until a later year). Dental activity figures do not cover private work or secondary care activity.
5. Primary care statistics on the number of dental practitioners are taken from lists of performers registered to provide these services. The lists maintained by BSO provide a headcount rather than full-time equivalent figures so take no account of differences in hours worked or changes to practitioner working patterns over time.
6. Whilst a number of UK comparisons have been included in the report, there can be important differences in how services are delivered between countries that can impact on the figures. The relative size of the private sector in the delivery of primary care services within each country will be a particularly important factor in this regard so care needs to be taken when interpreting any inter-country differences in HSC activity levels.
7. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic all registrations that were due to expire in 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 were extended throughout these years. The first set of patients expired at the end of March 2023.  In addition, the Enhanced Children’s Examination (ECE) Scheme ran from January 2023 to June 2023 as a dedicated scheme to improve access to dental care for unregistered patients aged 0-10 years.
8. The cost of primary care dental services is based on the annual assurance information supplied by the Business Services Organisation (BSO) to the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) for each financial year.
9. GDS Fees exclude payments made to practices in relation to the Rebuilding Support Scheme and provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), as well as other adjustments which cannot be assigned to adults or children.
10. The report itself presents high level summary information with all of the detailed data tables consigned to the accompanying Excel appendices. The figures are prepared and released by independent NISRA statisticians working within BSO’s FPS Information Unit.
11. Quarterly updates for 2024/25, for key report tables, will be released on a provisional basis on the FPS section of the BSO website  General Dental Services Statistics - Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net). These will be added to the historic quarterly series. The timetable for the release of the quarterly updates will also be published on the BSO website and all publications, both quarterly and annual, will be formally announced on the UK.Gov release calendar https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements
12. Electronic copies of the Bulletin and associated Excel tables are available free of charge from: General Dental Services Statistics - Business Services Organisation (BSO) Website (hscni.net). 
    
    Accredited Official Statistics
    These are Accredited Official Statistics and therefore comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.  Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
     
13. For media enquiries please contact the DoH Press Office by email pressoffice@health-ni.gov.uk.
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