2019/20 to 2024/25 Annual summary statistics
Date of notice: 27 March 2026
Workforce data
We’ve identified an error with the underlying data used to create the dental workforce summary tables and associated comma-separated values (CSV) files in the initial release.
Dental performers can submit FP17 dental activity forms after the activity took place. This can be several months after the time of the treatment. Most forms are submitted within the usual 62 days permitted for forms to be counted towards contractual totals.
The initial release incorrectly excluded dental performers whose only activity was submitted to the NHSBSA after March of the financial year for 2023/24 and 2024/25.
This has now been corrected. Performers with activity submitted after the end of these financial years are now included under their latest contract details as of March in 2024 (for treatment year 2023/24) or March 2025 (for treatment year 2024/25).
At national level for England, this has resulted in 114 more performers for 2023/24 and 112 more performers for 2024/25 than the previous published totals. This was an increase of 0.5% across both years.
The inclusion of these performers has also affected joiners and leavers data in 2023/24 and 2024/25. Compared to the previously published totals, there are 66 more joiners and 48 fewer leavers for 2023/24, and 6 more joiners and 8 more leavers for 2024/25.
Sub-national totals, joiners, and leavers for NHS region, Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Sub-ICB location (SICBL) levels have also changed due to the addition of these performers.
Patients seen – contract location
We have also identified an error in the mapping of patients in the dental patients seen geographical aggregation CSV files for contract location in 2019/20 to 2025/26.
Differences in the processes used to produce the CSV files and XLSX files resulted in discrepancies between the 2 outputs in how contracts were mapped to sub-national geographies.
The processes used to produce the CSV and XLSX files have been unified, with the CSV files now reconciling to the XLSX files. The largest differences were identified for Local Authority data, but there are also differences in data at NHS Region and ICB level. Health and Justice (H&J) commissioner data has also been added to these CSV files, to allow users access to more granular H&J data.
Across all rows in the affected CSV files, 70% have not changed in the corrected version. The number of rows of patients seen totals that increased more than 50% or decreased by more than 50% was small, at less than 1% of the rows from the previous files. However, some of these rows have large changes in the raw totals.
The patients seen data and activity data used to produce the statistical summary narrative and the excel summary tables were unaffected.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
2019/20 to 2023/24 Annual summary statistics
Date of notice: 5 November 2024
We’ve identified an error with the underlying data used to create the dental workforce tables in the initial release. The workforce supporting tables have now been corrected. We have changed how we source this data to prevent this issue occurring again.
In addition, data released on the day of publication included Welsh performers. The new tables have been limited to performers on English NHS dental contracts only.
Workforce data on joiners and leavers at a sub-national level was omitted from the initial release due to data quality concerns which have now been resolved. These tables have been created from the new data source and are now included in the workforce Excel summary tables and the workforce CSV (comma separated values) files.
The workforce tables have been created using a different methodology to previous releases of this publication produced by NHS Digital. Data from the NHS Digital releases should not be directly compared to data from the new NHS BSA releases.
A time series of data has been produced in the new release to allow for comparisons over time. This is a 5-year time series for most workforce data. Data on joiners and leavers has been limited to the past 4 years as the underlying data required to calculate numbers for 2019/20 was unavailable due to data retention policies.
Performers are assigned to an NHS region or ICB based on the location of the commissioner of the dental contract. Performers are assigned to a SICBL based on the primary correspondence address they have been recorded against.
ICB level data has been added to reflect how NHS dental contracts are commissioned. SICBL data has now been split into separate tables from region and ICB data, as the primary correspondence address may be in a different area to where the dental contract is for.
The key findings and narrative text has been corrected and a new version of the statistical summary narrative has been produced. This correction will affect conclusions that would previously have been drawn from the workforce data in the initial release on 22 August. Conclusions and data for dental activity and other non-workforce data has not been affected.
We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.
2019/20 to 2023/24 Annual summary statistics
Date of notice: 27 August 2024
We've identified that table 1f was omitted from the national summary tables. Table 1f covers data on courses of treatment by patient exemption type, treatment band, and financial year.
This table has been added into the national overview summary tables XLSX file and the file has been republished. All other data in the national overview summary tables, the geographical breakdown summary tables, and the workforce overview summary tables was unaffected.
There is no change to the key findings or the narrative text for this release.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.