Dentistry: Finance
(asked on 15th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the budget for NHS dentistry is for 2026.
The 2026/27 dental ringfenced budget for NHS dentistry is £4.2 billion. For 2026/27, the budget for dental checks in Special Educational Settings (SES) is being included within the dental ringfenced budget. This was previously included within the wider Pharmacy, Ophthalmic, Dental (POD) budget but was not ringfenced with other dental spend.
NHS England has now published the Medium-Term Planning Framework for delivering change together 2026/27 to 2028/29, which is available at the following link:
In addition, information on allocations for 2026/27 to 2027/28 is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/allocation-of-resources-2026-27-to-2027-28/
NHS organisations are now in the process of developing their operational plans that will detail how they will meet the standards set out in the Medium-Term Planning Framework.
A separate schedule has been issued setting out the 2026/27 to 2028/29 Integrated Care Board (ICB) POD allocations. The utilisation of ICB POD allocations is subject to a ringfence on budgets for dental services. More information is available at the following link: