Struggling to get a dental appointment? Dentists to be offered cash incentives to treat NHS patients
The government is planning to offer dentists cash incentives to take on new NHS patients and work in areas that are under-served.
Details of the NHS “dental recovery plan”, which also include sending teams into schools to treat children’s teeth, were due to be announced on Wednesday.
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However, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) appears to have inadvertently sent an email detailing the new measures to some opposition MPs. This was then passed on to Sky News.
The email, marked with Wednesday’s date, says dentists will be offered a “bonus” to take on more NHS patients, creating more than 1.5 million new treatments.
There will also be a “golden hello” cash incentive for dentists to work in areas that are under-served, allowing around one million new patients to access treatment.
This will kick in from later this year and see up to 240 dentists offered £20,000 to stay and deliver NHS care for at least three years in areas where recruitment and retention of dentists is difficult, the email says.
The plan, amounting to a £200m investment in NHS dentistry, also includes a “Smile for Life” initiative which aims to prevent tooth decay in nursery and reception-aged children by encouraging healthy tooth-brushing habits.
In addition, mobile dental teams will go into schools in under-served areas to provide advice and deliver fluoride varnish treatments to more than 165,000 kids.
A new dental van service will also be available for targeted rural and coastal communities in under-served areas, with the first vans up and running later this year.
It is unclear if the contents of the email will exactly match Wednesday’s announcement. Sky News has contacted the DHSC for comment.
The government has been under pressure to publish its NHS dentistry plan amid reports that people in the UK have had to resort to pulling out their own teeth because of a crisis in care.
On Monday, the British Dental Association (BDA) warned that police had to break up queues outside a dental practice in Bristol as they hit out at “sticking plaster policies”.
The BDA wants the government to reform “discredited dental contracts” which they say are fuelling an exodus and mean NHS treatments are being delivered at a financial loss.
They said claims that the measures being announced would generate “millions” of new appointments appeared to lack credibility.
“There is nothing in the plan to draw dentists back into NHS dentistry to enhance workforce capacity,” a spokesperson said – adding that most of the investment appeared to be drawn “from recycling existing budgets”.
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Labour claimed the government was “only promising to do something about it now there’s an election coming”.
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Pointing to his party’s own plan for supervised toothbrushing for children and thousands of extra appointments, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “After 14 years of Conservative neglect, patients are desperately queuing around the block to see a dentist, literally pulling their own teeth out, and tooth decay is the number one reason for 6-year-olds being admitted to hospital.
“The Conservatives are only promising to do something about it now there’s an election coming.
“By adopting Labour’s proposals for recruitment and supervised toothbrushing, they are finally admitting that they are out of ideas of their own.”
Lib Dem health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “This plan comes too little too late for those left waiting in pain for dental care or the children admitted to hospital for tooth decay.
“With over 12 million waiting for help, this pledge to help just 1 million is a drop in the ocean and shows the government isn’t serious.”
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Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
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Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
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The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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