Private Dentistry is Growing?

Do you want to know where the other dentists are now working to? Is the NHS Dental Sector or the Private Dentistry?

Before coming to work in the UK as a Dentist or Dental professional in either the NHS Dental sector or the Private Dentistry sector, it is important to have a good understanding of how both sectors work.

Knowledge and information should be gleaned from our site and from talking to our knowledgeable staff at Medicruit, which will help make career decisions by foreign dentists from Europe a lot easier. Of course most practices within the UK work with both the private dentistry sector and the NHS.

More than 7 million members of the public in the UK regularly receive private dental work. Most of these private dental practices provide Private AND NHS treatment. In fact only 200 out of all the 11,000 dental practices in the United Kingdom, provide only private dental work.

The UK market for private dentistry is continuing to grow exponentially. The market of dentistry and dental curing light grew by more than 60 % between 1997 and 2001 and is currently valued at over ￡1 billion. In real terms that’s a 50% increase in size!

The reason for this proliferation is twofold. Firstly the NHS Dental Department is wildly overstretched. Secondly, more and more members of the public are choosing to go private for cosmetic dental treatments like tooth whitening.

Dentists are affecting the industry directly by choosing private patients, naturally, as simply the work is more varied and it pays better. The Government and past Governments have failed to address the issue and have seriously underfunded the NHS Dental Service for years. These are the factors where the public are affecting the market.