Dentists

Latest data available 30th September 2009  - last updated 15th December 2009.

This section provides information on the number of dentists working in NHSScotland.  Information is presented as headcount. Information is not collected on the working hours of dentists in the General Dental Service (GDS).

Some dentists working in the General Dental Service (GDS) may also work in the Hospital or Community Dental Services (usually as a hospital practitioner or a clinical assistant (para 107)). 

There are various ways of calculating the number of dentists.  Classification of counting dentists was revised in 2004 to ensure a consistent way of recording dentist numbers. A dentist is counted once for each NHS Board where he/she has a contract to provide dental services. As a result, the sum of the number of dentists in each NHS Board area and in each region will exceed the number of dentists in Scotland (where a dentist is only counted once). Data for previous years have been revised to eliminate double counting between the different services and within the GDS.

Due to improvements in the collection of information on GDS salaried dentists, figures for September 2005 include some GDS salaried dentists not previously recorded.  There are a number of cases where a salaried post will be recorded under a generic name and not under the name of a specific dentist.  Numerous dentists may work in this post at any given time.  For years prior to September 2005 it was assumed that, since there was no named individual recorded, a permanent dentist was not in post.  As a result, all posts recorded without a named individual were previously excluded from GDS salaried dentist counts.  However, information is now available on the individuals who fill these posts.  These dentists can now be included in the GDS salaried dentist count, which has resulted in a significant increase in the number of salaried dentists


GDS, Hospital and Community Dentists   - [2,095kb]

GDS Dentists only - [2,466kb]

The number of dentists working in the GDS, Hospital and Community has increased by 5.6% from 3,078 at 30th September 2008 to 3,251 at 30th September 2009.

The chart below shows that the number of GDS, Hospital and Community dentists working within NHSScotland has been increasing over the past 10 years. 

The Dental Workforce Project utilises nationally-held data for workforce planning purposes. This includes predictions of future supply and workforce requirements for dentists. Click here  for more information on this project.