How much does NHS dental treatment cost?
Short answer
Three fixed bands in England: £27.90 for an examination and X-rays, £76.60 for fillings, extractions or root canal work, and £332.10 for crowns, dentures and bridges. One charge covers everything in a single course of treatment, however many items or appointments it takes.
NHS dentistry in England is priced by band rather than by procedure, and each band includes everything in the bands below it.
The three bands
- Band 1 — £27.90. Examination, diagnosis, X-rays, a scale and polish, and preventive advice.
- Band 2 — £76.60. Everything in Band 1 plus fillings, root canal treatment and extractions.
- Band 3 — £332.10. Everything above plus crowns, dentures and bridges.
One charge covers the whole course of treatment, so several fillings across two or three appointments still cost a single Band 2 fee. If you return within about two months for further work in the same course, you should not be charged again.
Treatment is free if you are under 18, or under 19 in qualifying full-time education, pregnant or within 12 months of giving birth, receiving Universal Credit, Income Support, income-based JSA, income-related ESA or the guarantee element of Pension Credit, or holding an HC2 certificate. Declare it on the FP17 form — a wrong declaration attracts a penalty charge from the NHSBSA.
Your rights on charges and treatment plans
Your dentist must give you a written treatment plan before starting a course of treatment, showing what is NHS-funded, what (if anything) is private, and the estimated private cost. If you were never given one, or the NHS and private items were not clearly separated, you can challenge the bill.
A dentist cannot make NHS treatment conditional on you accepting private work. If clinically appropriate NHS treatment exists, you can insist on it at the band charge — Band 3 covers standard dentures and crowns, and only genuinely premium materials fall outside. Charging separately for something that should be inside the band, such as a routine extraction, breaches the NHS dental contract.
Complaints go first to the practice, which must acknowledge within three working days and respond within 25, then to your Integrated Care Board, which commissions dental services and can offer contracts to more providers, and finally to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Concerns about a dentist's professional conduct go to the General Dental Council. If you cannot find an NHS dentist at all, call NHS England on 0300 311 22 33, and use NHS 111 for emergency dental pain.
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