New report on UK dental workforce
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- Published: Monday, 22 October 2018 07:38
- Written by News Editor
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Property adviser, Christie & Co has published its report on the UK dental market, ‘The Dental Industry 2018: Staffing, Brexit and the Dentist Shortage.’ This provides an overview of the dental market and presents research on the sector’s dentist shortage and key staffing challenges, emerging workforce trends, and regional differences in relation to supply and NHS dentists’ pay rates.
The report finds that the UK dental market comprises 12,500 dental practices, of which only a relatively small percentage are owned by corporate or multiple operators. This, it says presents an opportunity for further consolidation in the market for the larger corporates but also smaller groups.
The dental workforce is composed of 116,200 registered dental professionals, including dentists, dental nurses, therapists, technicians and hygienists. Although the number of UK qualified dentists has grown year on year since 2014, the report finds that greater domestic growth in new registrations will be essential to improve staffing, given the overall number of registered dentists who qualified in the EEA or overseas has decreased over the same period. In 2017 the number of new registrations by dentists who qualified in the EEA dropped by 19% compared to 2016 and 39% over two years. With Brexit looming, the supply of EEA qualified dentists could increasingly become an issue should negative growth trends continue.
The report aims to provide insight into the shortage of dentists in the UK. Whilst a common issue, workforce pressures appear to be most visible in certain parts of the country, not only varying by geography, but also demographic factors, such as affluence and urbanicity. The supply of dentists and DCPs is most under pressure in Wales, followed by England, with supply least under pressure in Scotland and Northern Ireland. After taking population density into consideration, London has the greatest supply of dental practices and the lowest number of individuals per practice, while the Midlands has the lowest supply of dental practices after accounting for population density.
Crucially, the report shows how regional variance in the supply and demand for dentists has influenced workforce trends and associate pay rates. Relatedly, staff recruitment and retention, staff quality and UDA contract fulfilment have emerged as the key challenges facing operators in the dental sector. Associates in the West Midlands are paid the lowest rates on average, with London interestingly found to be the second lowest paid region. The areas with the highest pay rates were the South West, Wales and the East of England, which were also identified as the more challenging areas for recruitment, therefore requiring higher rates to attract labour.
The report highlights how more dentists are choosing to live and work in affluent areas and demonstrates there is a greater supply of dentists in urban settings thus allowing employers to pay lower, more competitive associate rates within cities and densely populated areas.
The full report was launched on October 16.
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