Recommendation 30

NHSE, acknowledging these numbers, said that there has to be an acceptance that we need to train more dentists.89 DHSC, whilst not disagreeing with that assessment, told us that this is not the whole story 81 Q 27 82 Q 62 83 FND0005, page 1; FN0007, page 2 84 C&AG’s Report, Figure 1 85 FND0005, page 2 86 Qq 37–40 87 C&AG’s Report, para 1.19 88 NHS England, Dental workforce statistics, March 2024 89 Q 34 18 because the overall number of dentists has actually gone up; it is the number who are delivering NHS work that has gone down.90 Survey data from the General Dental Council shows that of the 34,520 dentists registered with them in April 2023, 22% reported in December 2023 that they were not providing any NHS dental care, and were only providing private dental care.91