Extra funds aim to boost dental services in Northern Ireland

Dental Tribune International

Wed. 6. May 2026

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BELFAST, Northern Ireland: Health officials in Northern Ireland have pledged to repair ailing publicly funded dental services via long-term reforms; however, immediate measures are required to shore up the delivery of care and relieve pent-up demand. The Department of Health has announced additional funding for General Dental Services (GDS) to support dental training, incentivised treatment and the establishment of a new emergency dental clinic.

According to a Department of Health bulletin, the £8.0 million (€9.2 million^*) in additional funding will be used to establish an emergency dental clinic in the Western Health and Social Care Trust area and six additional Dental Foundation Training places for 2026/2027. It will also support a 25% increase in the budget for enhancement payments to dentists taking on extra GDS cases, as well as the continuation of two recent initiatives aimed at increasing access to oral care. These are the Enhanced Child Examination Scheme, which supports registration and preventive care for children aged 0–10 who are not already registered with a dentist and the 30% increase in fees for dentists performing GDS priority treatments.

Minister of Health Mike Nesbitt said in the bulletin: “I have been clear in my commitment to the ongoing reform of the dental service so that it works better for both patients and practitioners. The measures announced today will help stabilise the service and enhance access to dentists.”

Citing significant and ongoing dental workforce pressures, Nesbitt said that the additional six training places would bring the number of funded places to 36, supporting the retention of young clinicians and the long-term sustainability of the workforce. He added that the limited resources available were being directed to the areas that would provide the greatest impact and where patients were most in need.

In a letter to the British Dental Association’s Northern Ireland director, Tristen Kelso, Nesbitt acknowledged that the measures were not a silver bullet, but would help to support continuity of dental services in the short term. “Alongside these immediate measures, work is continuing on the cost of service review, which will play a key role in informing longer-term decisions on the future direction of GDS,” he said.

In response, the dental association has challenged the Northern Ireland Executive to “go further and faster” towards dental payment reform. It stated that less than half of the population is registered with GDS—389,132 fewer than in 2023. “At the heart of the collapse is the gap between what the Department of Health pays for [GDS care] and the increased costs to deliver dental care to modern standards by practices,” the association said. It emphasised that “dental payment reform cannot wait”.

The funding boost in Northern Ireland comes amid wider efforts to ensure access to publicly funded dental care across the UK. However, because dental services are devolved, reform programmes differ between nations. In England, the government has broadened the scope of its additional dental appointment target beyond urgent care, and official figures show that 1.8 million additional courses of National Health Service dental treatment were delivered from April to October 2025.

Editorial note:

^* Calculated on the OANDA platform for 20 April 2026.

Topics:

Public Health Dentistry

Tags:

Dental funding General Dental Services Government NHS Northern Ireland Public health UK dental crisis

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