Dentists

On this page:

Routine dental care

Urgent dental care

Children’s dental care

NHS dental services

The NHS will provide all treatment that your dentist feels is clinically necessary to keep your teeth, gums and mouth healthy.

This means that if your dentist says that you need a particular type of treatment, it will be available on the NHS.

While some people are eligible for free treatment (see below), dentistry is one of the few NHS services where you have to contribute to the cost of your care.

Find out more about dental charges.

NHS Dentistry is funded to support 50 to 60 percent of the population, and in line with the Dental Reform Programme, access should be targeted to those with the greatest clinical need.

Dental practices are independent businesses, often providing a combination of NHS and private dentistry. Patients are not registered with a dentist in the same way they are with a general practitioner (GP), and individuals can access services at a dental practice located in any area if the practice is accepting new patients.

Practices providing NHS treatment are listed on the NHS Find a dentist service. CIOS ICB do not hold information on practices who are currently accepting new patients. Each practice updates their information on the NHS Find a dentist service.

Population needs

There are Local Authority Public Health Oral Health Consultants who work with NHS dental commissioning teams to improve the oral health of the local population.

NHS England South West commissioned an independent Oral Health Needs Assessment which was published in 2021. This OHNA includes an appendix focused on Cornwall & Isles of Scilly.

How to access routine dental services

Dental practices are independent businesses, and most offer both NHS and private dental treatment.

You can find a NHS dental surgery that’s convenient for you by searching the NHS website.

Services for vulnerable people

Specialist community dental services are available for people who may not be able to attend a general dental practice.

These include people with various mental, medical and physical needs – for instance:

• children with extensive untreated tooth decay who are particularly anxious
• children in foster homes or residential care, or on the ‘at risk’ register
• people with physical or learning disabilities, medical conditions or mental health problems
• children referred for specific treatment
• adults with complex needs who have difficulty accessing general dental services, including adults with moderate and severe learning and physical disabilities or
• housebound and homeless people.

In Cornwall & Isles of Scilly this service is provided by Smile Together.

Improving access to dental services in Cornwall & Isles of Scilly

It is important to note that our overarching aim is to ensure that our population has access to good, quality NHS dental provision. The key aims of our commissioning programme are:

• Improved patient access
• Increased financial viability
• Reduction in terminated contracts
• Improved oral health
• Improved patient satisfaction

Whilst we still have a long way to go on our dental journey it is important to recognise the level of investment, both in terms of time and money, that has been provided to date.

CIOS ICB are committed to ensuring that our population can access dental care when they need it.

Urgent dental care

In 2025 the government went out to consultation regarding changes to improve the current NHS dental contract. Through these proposed reforms, the aim is to secure a commitment of 700,000 more urgent dental care appointments nationally every year (which equates to approximately 10,900 for CIOS ICB), to better support patients with urgent and complex treatment needs and encourage the delivery of more preventative care.

CIOS ICB are commissioning further urgent dental care appointments to meet our annual target of 10,910, alongside increasing stabilisation sessions to ensure continuity of care for patients with complex needs.

Stabilisation services

• We have implemented a new pathway for those who do not have access to a regular dentist but for whom the urgent care pathway is not appropriate – the stabilisation pathway.
• Stabilisation sessions are for patients who seek urgent care and who are identified during the appointment as having several additional dental issues that need addressing imminently.  Patients can access stabilisation dental care by calling 0333 405 0290
• Stabilisation deals with the provision of a definitive course of treatment for patients without access to an NHS dentists who may have a urgent care need, or are in need of dental intervention to prevent their condition worsening and requiring urgent treatment.
• Stabilisation should stabilise the dental issue over a course of treatment that, in the clinical judgement of the dentist, will prevent the person from accessing urgent care with the same issue within the following 12 months.

Oral health improvement

We recognise that we need to have a dedicated focus on children in order that we can improve their oral health and create a stable dental platform as they grow into adults. We therefore have commissioned the following oral health programmes:

• Smarter smiles programme delivering oral health education and a fluoride varnishing programme across schools and nurseries in areas of high tooth decay across Cornwall.
• First dental steps supporting families with tooth brushing for 9–12-month-old babies.
• SW regional supervised toothbrushing programme now established in 76% of primary schools and now being extended into nursery settings.

Alongside the above in 2025 we initiated a dental sprint which is a 6–8-week rapid review of dentistry for children. This has a dedicated focus on developing a dental strategy and mobilisation plan for improving children’s oral health and reducing children’s dental extractions requiring secondary care intervention.

There are plans for dental campaigns to be rolled out nationally with local authorities that will focus on prevention and good dental health.

First Dental Steps programme

• The First Dental Steps programme is an oral health improvement intervention, embedded in the Healthy Child Programme. It incorporates public health and NICE recommendations into a multi-stranded oral health initiative and builds on the learning from a recent pilot delivered across six South West sites. 
• In the short-term it is anticipated that the intervention has the potential to support the promotion of preventive dental care for children aged 0-2 years. The universal element of the programme has the potential to impact upon 163,000 children (aged 0-2 years old) across the South West, with a targeted offer to approximately 4,000 vulnerable children.
• In the longer term it is expected that implementation will support the realisation of the following benefits:
  • An increase in dental access and attendance for children aged 0-2 years;
  • A reduction in the prevalence and severity of dental caries, alongside a reduction in oral health inequalities in young children;
  • A reduction in hospital-based tooth extractions for children due to dental decay.
• Health visitors and community nurses have received training in oral health promotion, so they can support families with young children in providing evidence-based advice, alongside toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste packs. Children at high risk of decay are identified and referred directly to community dental teams for further help where needed.
• This programme is already running in Cornwall & Isles of Scilly.

Supervised toothbrushing and fluoride varnish programmes

• Programmes are currently underway to give children time and supervision to brush their own teeth at nursery and reception class in most areas of Cornwall, making brushing part of children’s everyday routine and helping to protect their teeth from decay.
• Dental professionals visit nurseries and schools to apply fluoride varnish to children’s teeth, with parents’ consent.
• Supervised toothbrushing scheme is already running in Cornwall & Isles of Scilly.

Workforce

Dental recruitment incentive scheme 2025/26

• COIS ICB offer an incentive (‘golden hello’) payment which has been used in different parts of the NHS to aid recruitment in areas of the country that have traditionally been hard to recruit to.
• The aim of the Dental Recruitment Incentive Scheme (DRIS) is to help practices that are struggling to attract people through the usual recruitment routes by supporting them to offer a financial incentive. The scheme is designed to encourage relocation to areas with workforce challenges, to attract new workforce to the NHS, and to retain those who might have otherwise moved into private practice.
• A ‘golden hello’ bonus incentive payment of £20,000 will be offered per dentist for up to 240 dentists.

Foundation Training Practices

CIOS have agreed to implement a financial incentive to further support foundation dental training practices, with the aim of sustaining and strengthening their commitment to hosting foundation dentists.

Registration with an NHS dentist

Patients are not registered with a dental practice in the same way as they are with a general practice, although some dental practices might see patients on a regular basis. Instead, dental practices are contracted to deliver activity and are obliged to only deliver a course of treatment to an individual, irrelevant of where they live, and not to deliver ongoing regular care.

There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend, allowing patients the choice of where they would like to receive a course of treatment, as long as the practice is accepting new patients.

Dental practices are independent businesses, often providing a combination of NHS and private dentistry. Practices providing NHS treatment are listed on the NHS website and they update this list themselves.

CIOS ICB  do not hold information on practices who are currently accepting new patients, and practices can close their lists at any time if they are full.

Advice for patients of River Practice Ltd NHS Orthodontic Service, Truro and Penzance 

Complaints and patient communications

On 1 April 2023 responsibility for commissioning NHS dentistry was delegated to ICBs across England. The seven ICBs in the South West are supported by the NHS South West Collaborative Commissioning Hub (CCH) to commission NHS dentistry in their area.

In the first instance, CIOS ICB  recommends that concerns or complaints are raised directly with the dental provider in question. This is the organisation from which you received NHS dental services. However, if that is not possible, please contact ciosicb.complaints@nhs.net who will discuss with you what happens next.