New NHS dental patients treated by local health board and patient type

Variable filters

You will be able to change the filter selections once you've chosen how to view the data.
Data description

This indicates what a data value represents

2 of 2 selected
No values match your search
Measure
6 of 6 selected
No values match your search
Year
4 of 4 selected
No values match your search
Area
8 of 8 selected
No values match your search

Choose how to view the data

You'll be asked to choose 2 variables to show on a table
The data will be shown with columns for each of the variables in the dataset, with a data value for all combinations of variables

Next update expected:February 2026

Updates

22nd April 2026

New data added

5th March 2026

Year to date updated

20th November 2025
Dataset first published.

Main information

Designation
Official statistics
Data provider
NHS Business Services Authority
Data source
Dental services

Overview

Summary of dataset and variables

This data shows the number of new NHS dental patients treated and the number of new urgent patient treatments (2023-24 onwards only)

Data collection or calculation

As part of the dental contract reform programme announced in 2020, dental practices are remunerated for seeing new patients and data on new patients has been collected since April 2022. The aim of capturing new patients is to count those who are newly registered with an NHS dentist for routine treatments. There is a separate measure to count the urgent treatments of new patients, who may not be registered to an NHS dentist for routine appointments.

New patients are defined as: A unique count of patients at each NHS dental contractor who started a Band 1, 2, or 3 treatment with a complete ACORN in the year, whose previous Band 1, 2, or 3 treatment at the contractor was completed more than 48 months prior to the ACORN; or who have not previously been treated by the NHS dental contractor.

For 2023-24, the period to count new patients was adjusted to count Band 1, 2 or 3 treatments back to 1 April 2019, to recognise the severe disruption to NHS dental services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

'New urgent patient treatments' are defined as: A count of urgent treatments at each NHS dental contractor that started in the year, for patients whose previous Band 1, 2, or 3 treatment at the contractor was more than 48 months prior to the urgent treatment; or who have not previously been treated by the NHS dental contractor. The same patient can be counted multiple times if they had multiple urgent treatments at the same contract. This data is available from 2023-24.

'New urgent’ patient treatments are not a subset of ‘new patients’ and the same patient can be counted in both measures in the same year depending on the circumstances of their treatment.

Statistical quality

While new patients are unique counts for each specific dental contractor, it is estimated that around 80% of new patients in the financial year to date did not have a separate Band 1, 2 or 3 treatment at another Welsh contractor in the previous 4 years.

Related reports

Published by

Organisation
Welsh Government
Contact email
stats.healthinfo@gov.wales