Dental Services for Northern Ireland, Quarterly Series to Q3 2023/24 - Provisional

Dental Services for Northern Ireland, Quarterly Series to Q3 2023/24 - Provisional

Published 01 February 2024

A National Statistics Publication
Published by: BSO Family Practitioner Services Information Unit

Contact: Jennifer McCrea
Telephone: 028 9536 3691
Email: Jennifer.McCrea@hscni.net

Theme: General Dental Services
Coverage: Northern Ireland
Frequency: Quarterly

Publication date: 01 February 2024

Key Facts

Key variable	This quarter	Change since last quarter (%)	Change since last year (%)
Patient Registrations	1,316,565	-0.4	-0.8
Dentist Headcount	1,194	1.0	2.7
Dental Practices	364	0.0	0.0
Fillings	170,522	8.6	-5.6
Extractions	36,132	8.8	-3.9
X-Rays	161,381	6.0	-11.8
Crowns	4,611	3.4	1.1
Treatment Claims	266,587	9.1	5.0
IOS Treatment Fees Paid (£’s)	16,840,000	7.7	-5.2

Quarterly Series Tables

Download the quarterly general dental statistics by clicking on the button below. This quarterly series is a subset of the annual information with data provided for selected key tables relating to the following topics:

• Patient Registrations by Gender and Age Group
• Patient Registrations by Local Commissioning Group (Health Trust) and Local Government District
• Fillings, Extractions, X-Rays and Crowns by Gender and Age Group
• Fillings, Extractions, X-Rays and Crowns by Local Commissioning Group (Health Trust) and Local Government District
• Monthly Breakdown of Claims submitted and paid, IoS Fees Paid and Number of Patients treated by Payment Month
• Number of Dental Practices by Local Commissioning Group (Health Trust) and Local Government District
• Headcount of Dentists by Local Commissioning Group (Health Trust) and Local Government District

The quarterly updates within a year should be treated as provisional and may be revised when figures are finalised to produce the end of year annual report.

Download data:

Quarterly data: 139KB

Trend Charts

1.1 Patient Registrations in Northern Ireland

Figure 1.1a: Number of Patient Registrations by gender and financial quarter

Download data:

Figure 1.1a.CSV (1kB)

Figure 1.1a.XLSX (8kB)

Figure 1.1b: Number of Patient Registrations by age and financial quarter

Download data:

Figure 1.1b.CSV (2kB)

Figure 1.1b.XLSX (9kB)

1.2 Treatments in Northern Ireland

Figure 1.2: Number of Fillings, Extractions, X-Rays and Crown Treatments by financial quarter

Download data:

Figure 1.2.CSV (1kB)

Figure 1.2.XLSX (8kB)

1.3 Dentists in Northern Ireland

Figure 1.3: Headcount of Dentists by financial quarter

Download data:

Figure 1.3.CSV (1kB)

Figure 1.3.XLSX (7kB)

1.4 Treatment Claims submitted and paid and IOS Treatment Fees Paid

Figure 1.4: Monthly Breakdown of Treatment Claims submitted and paid and IOS Treatment Fees Paid by Payment Month

Download data:

Figure 1.4.CSV (1kB)

Figure 1.4.XLSX (9kB)

User Guidance

Dentists are paid a monthly fee for each registered patient. The registration payments are based on the patient’s age, and can be weighted by home address as a proxy measure for deprivation which is closely associated with oral health need; and additionally whether or not they have certain special needs to remunerate for the additional time to provide care and treatment:

• Children (Capitation) – a basic monthly fee for the care and treatment, necessary to secure and maintain oral health, of patients under the age of 18.

• Adult (Continuing Care) – Is a monthly fee payable for patients aged 18 years or over, and as such is more akin to a fee for maintaining a patient’s registration.

Dentists must be registered on the Dental List to carry out health service treatment but may also do private work, however FPS have no record of the proportion of private vs health service work or private patients or treatments. Dentists can move around different practices to work, there are no restrictions on staying in one practice and many work in multiple locations at the same time. For the purposes of this release, dentists have been assigned to an area based on the amount of money they earn in each area they work.

Dental Practice can have different number of dentists working and can do differing proportion of health service work.

The Statement of Dental Remuneration (SDR) lists all the items of service (i.e. individual care, special investigations, and treatments) that dentists can provide and claim payment for. Payments are made for individual treatments provided within a course of treatment.

Treatment claims, which are a subset of all claims are defined as having at least one Statement of Dental Remuneration (SDR) Item of Service (IoS) being claimed by the dentist, and can cover a single appointment or multiple appointments.

Total Payment made in relation to IoS Treatments = Children IoS Fees + Adult IoS Fees + FSS/RSS (including Trainee Block Payment) + PPE. During the Covid-19 pandemic, dentists were provided FSS/RSS payments to supplement their IoS related income. In addition PPE payments were provided so that dental services could resume while meeting the health and safety requirements set out by the former HSCB.

For more detail consult the user guidance tab on the downloadable quarterly series tables.

About this publication

The General Dental Services Statistics for Northern Ireland 2019/20 to 2022/23 annual reports contain high-level information on Primary Care services in Northern Ireland with comparisons against previous years. Annual data is supplemented by annex tables providing more detailed information with year-on-year comparisons. The Annual reports and accompanying tables are available here.

This quarterly series is a subset of the annual information, with data provided for certain key tables. Not all tables presented in the annual report have been replicated quarterly, as in many cases there is not much change in the figures from quarter to quarter. For example, certain analysis such as proximity to services, do not change much on a quarterly basis. This publication is in a new HTML format, as was introduced for the Q3 2023/24 quarterly series, and includes interactive graphics and the ability to automatically download the data presented in the charts.

This is a National Statistics Publication containing accredited official statistics.

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 – see here for further explanation of this terminology. These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) and received formal accreditation on 11th May 2022 (see OSR Compliance Report). As such they comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

We have developed a series of statements to demonstrate how we meet the Code in our everyday work. These cover our independence, data quality procedures, how we make our statistics accessible whilst protecting your data, engage with you to meet your needs and, when things go wrong, how we make corrections or, should our services fall below the required standard, how you can make a complaint. All of this information is included in our Statistics Charter.

Since the assessment by the OSR, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have made the following improvements:

• Introduction of a Key Facts summary sheet, detailing headline results for the service area, and relevant trend charts in the quarterly excel releases.

• Updated the Dental Quality Assessment of Administrative Data (QAAD) to clarify that previous technical issues with the payment system does not affect comparisons between current and past statistics nor the quality so that readers are aware.

• On 28th March 2023 a pilot User Engagement showcase event was held to advise users of the current capabilities and future developments of the statistics and obtain feedback from users.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards (contact the responsible statistician listed at beginning of this publication). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website here.

Feedback

Feedback is welcome and if you have requirements for further quarterly breakdowns please email info.bso@hscni.net

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