Survey exposes burn-out in dental teams

Dental Tribune International

Wed. 13. August 2025

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DUNDEE, Scotland: A landmark UK study has found that stress and burn-out across the dental workforce stem largely from systemic issues, particularly within National Health Service (NHS) dentistry, with some professionals reporting “serious mental health issues, including suicidal ideation”. The authors warn that, without urgent reform, these pressures will continue to damage both staff well-being and patient care.

It is argued within existing research that “chronic workplace stress is a growing concern as it can severely damage the mental health of dental professionals and negatively impact their ability to provide appropriate care”. This is a concern also recently taken up by the British Dental Journal, which initiated a dedicated corpus of articles on the issue of workplace stress within dentistry.

In line with this increasing mindfulness about the psychological stress of the profession, especially amidst an ongoing national dental crisis, the MINDSET U.K. 2023 survey, led by the UK dental team mental health research and implementation group, gathered responses from over 1,500 members of the dental team, including dentists, dental care professionals, practice managers and receptionists. Of these, 287 provided free-text comments that offered candid, and often alarming, accounts of the current climate in the profession. Six key stressor themes emerged: workload; NHS system pressures; regulatory compliance, patient complaints and litigation; financial pressures; leadership and management; and self-worth.

An intolerable workload was the most common complaint, worsened by recruitment and retention difficulties. One respondent said: “Patient numbers and demand are much higher than dentists are now able to cope with and it’s affecting all levels of staff, from reception to surgery.”

The NHS contractual framework—particularly England’s units of dental activity system—was widely criticised in the survey. Respondents reported “constant pressure and stress from NHS unachievable targets”, and a belief that there is “no positive future for NHS dentistry” without significant reform. Many had already moved to private practice for “less pressure, less complaints and … less [stress]”.

Regulation and litigation fears were also prominent. Dentists’ responses expressed this explicitly: “The atmosphere from regulatory bodies, constant fear of disciplinaries, constant litigation fear and the feeling of being held to ransom by patients with axes to grind” have “sucked the fun out of dentistry”.

Financial strain was keenly felt, and dental care professionals highlighted poor wages that do not reflect the effort and dedication the work requires. For practice owners, stagnant NHS funding and rising costs threatened viability, and associates reported pressure to hit targets at the expense of quality care.

Leadership quality was another critical factor, poor communication and lack of support fuelling stress. Feelings of low self-worth were common, typified by the comment: “The morale of the dental team is in the toilet. We are underfunded and under-appreciated and frankly we’re sick of it.”

The study concluded that current reactive approaches are insufficient and that macro-level change is essential to enable dental teams to develop, flourish and feel valued. Without it, the profession faces worsening burn-out, attrition and risks to patient safety.

The article, titled “Me, we, they: Identifying the key stressors affecting the dental team”, was published on 8 August 2025 in the British Dental Journal.