Dentists' salaries soar as waiting lists grow

Salaries for dentists have soared despite long waiting lists for patients, it emerged today.

New figures from the NHS Information Centre reveal average earnings across the country have reached £96,135.

This is a rise of more than 10 per cent for top earners with some dentists working less than 35 hours a week. In London average pay is £86,154, although some earn more than £120,000 a year.

The rise is due to a new contract agreed by health bosses.

Pay used to be based on the number of procedures dentists carried out but that system was scrapped in 2006 and replaced with a system which gives them a fixed income for an agreed amount of work.

This was designed to discourage dentists from carrying out unnecessary treatment but including the Patients Association say the new contract encourages them to "maximise profits" instead of putting patients first.

The number of patients seeing an NHS dentist fell by a million across the country last year. It is almost impossible to get on the books of an NHS practice in some parts of London including Brent, Sutton and Merton.

The British Dental Association today defended the high salaries.

Chief executive Peter Ward said: "These figures fail to take into account the clawing back of money from NHS dentists who failed to meet flawed treatment targets. Almost half of the high street dentists across England and Wales could be subject to such clawback this year."