Publication of family practitioner services general dental statistics for Northern Ireland 2024/25

Date published: 19 June 2025

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 2024/25 report are:

Dental Services

• In Northern Ireland, there were 359 dental practices with 1,206 dentists registered to carry out health service treatments at the end of March 2025. Registered dentists have increased by 14% over the last decade, including a slight increase of 1% in the latest year.
• The number of female dentists exceeds males, currently making up 60% of the workforce. In particular, the majority of younger dentists are female, with 72% 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.
• The number of registered patients is 257,000 (or 20%) lower than in 2024, meaning just over half (54%) of the population is registered with a health service dentist including just over two-thirds (69%) of children. Over the past year, the child registration rate has decreased by 6 percentage points, while the adult registration rate has decreased by 16 percentage points.
• Fermanagh and Omagh LGD has just 35% of its adult population registered with a health service dentist, 4 percentage points lower than any other LGD and 15 percentage points below the Northern Ireland average. It does, however, have a registration rate for children of 70%, 1 percentage point more than the Northern Ireland average.
• Females are more likely to be registered with a dentist (57% compared to 51% of males); this difference is particularly striking in the 18-44 age group with 55% of females registered compared to just 44% of males.
• 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.
• In 2024/25, there were 869,000 treatment claims submitted and paid for adults, similar (-0.1%) to last year. Looking at individual 'Item of Service' treatments within those claims, approximately 575,000 clinical examinations were performed on adults, an increase of 6% on 2023/24.
• Approximately 100,000 children received dental treatment in excess of the basic treatments, an increase of 4% on last year. Looking at individual 'Item of Service' treatments for those children, the most common SDR item claimed was for Colour Photographs, totalling almost 23,000 claims, a similar proportion of all claims as in 2023/24.
• Fillings decreased by 7%, and extractions decreased by 4%, overall compared to 2023/24. For children, fillings only decreased by 1% and extractions remained similar (+0.1%) over the same period.
• During 2023/24, the latest year for which comparative figures are available, dentists in Northern Ireland filled more teeth (33,825) per 100,000 population than England (21,684), Wales (15,595) and Scotland (30,603). 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 Pound 133.7 million. Patient contributions (also included in the gross total) increased from Pound 21.4 million in 2023/24 to Pound 22.7 million in the latest year.
• The average cost (GDS Fees) per head of child population was Pound 92.60 in 2024/25, up from Pound 80.80 in 2023/24, whilst for adults, the cost per head (including patient contributions) was just over Pound 39, similar to last year.