NHS dental contract holders will have to deliver 8.2% of their contract value as urgent or unscheduled activity in 2026/27, the government has confirmed.
Confirmed yesterday (22 January), the change means that NHS dentists will need to provide 11 urgent or unscheduled care treatment courses per £10,000 of contract value.
For example, 33 urgent courses of treatment would be required for a contract worth £30,000. At the increased remuneration level of £75 per unschedule course of treatment, this would result in a payment of £2,475.
The government said the new measure would ‘support wide geographical access to and more equitable distribution of unscheduled care capacity across practices’.
‘The wrong approach’
However, the British Dental Association (BDA) said forcing practices to deliver a minimum amount of urgent care was ‘wrong in principle’. The association highlighted that practices could face financial penalties when not meeting urgent care targets because local demand does not exist.
Shiv Pabary, chair of the BDA General Dental Practice Committee, said: ‘Mandating a minimum level of urgent care on practices is overreach. By their very nature these treatments are demand-led.
‘Your dentist has no control over when the next patient breaks a tooth or develops an abscess, and if demand isn’t there, they could pay the price. We’ve fought for a level that feels manageable, but this is the wrong approach.’
Does the dental profession support a minimum urgent care requirement?
The government’s confirmation of the minimum urgent care threshold follows its announcement of the results of a consultation on wider contract reforms in December 2025.
During the consultation, half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the urgent care proposal would better support practices to provide more unscheduled care to patients.
A further 68% thought that the proposed payment arrangement would be fairer than the current arrangement of a variable 1.2 UDA value.
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