NHS Dental Charges Amendment Regulations 2026

What the amending SI does technically

SI 2026/265 is broader than a typical annual uprating instrument. It amends three sets of 2005 regulations at once: the General Dental Services Contracts Regulations, the Personal Dental Services Agreements Regulations, and the Dental Charges Regulations. Regulation 16 makes the headline substitutions, replacing £27.40 with £27.90 (Band 1), £75.30 with £76.60 (Band 2) and £326.70 with £332.10 (Band 3) in the principal 2005 Regulations (SI 2005/3477).

Beyond the figures, the instrument introduces a mandatory annual urgent-treatment requirement for GDS and PDS contractors, redefines urgent treatment around clinical necessity rather than severe pain, adds standalone fluoride varnish treatment (Band 1, regulation 17), and moves the surface application of sealants and the conservation treatment of deciduous teeth in under-18s into Band 2 (regulation 18). The exempt categories, the course-of-treatment rule and the refund mechanism are unchanged.

The amending SI is made under the same statutory powers as the principal Regulations. It uses the negative resolution procedure: laid before Parliament on 10 March 2026, then in force from 1 April 2026 unless either House passed a motion to annul.

The No. 2 Regulations: complex care pathways from 23 June 2026

A second 2026 instrument, the National Health Service (Primary Dental Services and Dental Charges) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/554), was laid before Parliament on 21 May 2026 and comes into force on 23 June 2026. It does not change the Band 1, 2 or 3 charge amounts.

Instead it introduces structured complex care pathways for patients with significant dental needs: a six-month pathway for multiple decayed teeth, a twelve-month pathway for decay combined with periodontal disease, and a six-month pathway for advanced periodontal disease. A course of treatment delivered under a complex care pathway attracts a Band 2 charge (£76.60), regardless of length. The instrument also doubles the UDA credit for denture repairs (from 1.0 to 2.0), provides for electronic prescribing, and updates terminology.

For patients, the practical effect is that an extended programme of treatment for serious decay or gum disease is charged once at Band 2, rather than potentially re-charged across repeated courses. The full text is on legislation.gov.uk.

The Explanatory Memorandum

DHSC publishes an Explanatory Memorandum alongside every amending SI. The 2026 EM (available on the legislation.gov.uk page for SI 2026/265) covers:

• Policy background: the role of patient charges in funding NHS dental services, the annual uprating cycle, the recent freeze and catch-up rise.
• Detail of the change: the new figures and percentage uplifts.
• Impact on patients: the cost impact across treatment types, exemption coverage, and the assessment that the uplift sits below CPI.
• Impact on dental practices: no direct administrative burden (Compass system handles new figures automatically), no change to GDS contract payments, no change to UDA arrangements.
• Equality impact assessment: notes that the rise affects lower-income working households relatively more, but argues that the Low Income Scheme exemption and the Band 3 cap mitigate the impact.
• Consultation: states that no consultation was conducted, as is normal for annual uprating SIs.
• Monitoring and review: commits to keeping the charge structure under review as part of wider NHS dental contract reform.

The EM is the most useful single document for understanding the government's stated rationale. It is downloadable from the SI's page on legislation.gov.uk.

The rise in context

The British Dental Association's long-running position on charge upratings is that patient charges keep rising while NHS dental access remains constrained, so patients are being asked to pay more for a service that is increasingly hard to access. The BDA argues the charge debate should be subordinated to a broader reform of the General Dental Services contract (the UDA model), which it sees as the upstream cause of the access crisis.

On the numbers, the cumulative position favours patients in real terms: Band 1 has risen from £23.80 (December 2020) to £27.90 (April 2026), a 17.2% nominal rise, while UK CPI rose by roughly 29% over the same window. Dental charges have therefore fallen in real terms since 2020, despite the headline pain of consecutive April rises. Our real-terms analysis covers the full series.

The structural question, whether the three-band charge model remains fit for purpose in a context of declining NHS dental access, remains open. The Government has not signalled any intention to alter the model in England, even as Wales moved to a fixed per-care-package charge model (capped at £384 per course) from April 2026.

How 2026 compares to recent years

CPI figures from ONS. Year-by-year detail at our charge history page and real-terms analysis at real-terms charge history.

What 2027 may look like

The DHSC has not signalled any intention to change the structural model or the percentage methodology for 2027. A continuation of the recent CPI-tracking pattern would suggest:

• Band 1 likely to move to approximately £28.40 to £28.80 (2 to 3% rise)
• Band 2 likely to move to approximately £78.00 to £79.00
• Band 3 likely to move to approximately £338.00 to £342.00

These figures are illustrative only and depend on the OBR inflation forecast for early 2027, the wider DHSC settlement, and any policy intervention. The structural model is unlikely to change without a much larger contract-reform initiative.

A wholesale reform of the GDS contract would in principle allow the patient charge structure to be redesigned (for example, away from three bands and toward a percentage-of-cost share like the Welsh and NI models, or toward a universal-coverage model with no patient charge as in Scotland for under-26s). None of this is currently on the public DHSC roadmap.

Frequently asked questions