The recession has seen spending on private dentistry fall for the first time on record, according to Laing and Buisson's Dentistry UK Market Report 2011, yet dental plans are ever more popular.
Private dentistry has decreased by an estimated 7% in real terms over 2008/09 and 2009/10, as consumers cut back, and NHS availability encouraged patients to save on dentistry costs.
The survey shows 58% of primary care dentistry spending was on NHS treatment in 2009/10, equivalent to £3.3bn, while the remaining 42% of UK market value was represented by private dentistry, worth some £2.4bn. Private spend is estimated to have peaked at around £2.5bn for the UK in 2007/08, just prior to the economic recession.
Elsewhere, the Report reports that dental plans have become more popular, with average spending growing at around twice the rate of self-pay private spending during the 2000s.
The total dental plan market in the UK - covering capitation, dental insurance, and dental cover from cash plans - is estimated to be worth £665m in 2009, the bulk through capitation (£481m), £76m spent on dental insurance, and £108m through derived cash plan contributions.
Since 2004, private capitation spending is estimated to have increased by two-thirds in real terms, and dental insurance spending has more than doubled, driven by an increasing appetite for dental cover from employers. This market segment also managed to grow through the recession.
However private dentistry overall may grow again, as greater fiscal restraint for the NHS now puts NHS dentistry on a more modest spending trend to no real growth at best under the Coalition during this Parliament.
The report concludes that longer term a stronger economy and improved consumer confidence, along with weaker NHS spending growth, could provide a stimulus for private dentistry.
Report author, senior economist Philip Blackburn commented: "The scale of NHS dentistry spending in the future is uncertain, as key pivotal events will shape its direction.
"Major reforms to dentistry budgetary and commissioning structures, and dentist contracts, have the potential to build and strengthen confidence in NHS dentistry, but equally the potential to destabilise the current delivery of NHS services. Crucially, the Coalition faces a big challenge to deliver positive reforms with no real spending increases, and possible service cuts."
