Dentist morale continues to drop as new NHS survey on Dentists' Working Patterns, Motivation and Morale released

The NHS has released the first survey of Dental working patterns since the pandemic. This release covers a number of metrics about the hours worked by dentists and the time spent on NHS work as well as the results of large scale survey questions on motivation. We have looked at some of the key results compared to previous years. Whilst the survey is UK-wide we have focused on English figures.

Perhaps most concerning is the continuing drop in morale amongst dentists with now less than 20% of them saying they have high or very high morale. The reasons for this include growing concerns about recruitment and retention and preventative care remuneration.

These figures are important in trying to understand why Dentistry is at a crisis point. Particularly stark is the big regional differences in the percentage of NHS work dentists carry out, shown in the final graph here.

You can see the full figures at Dentists' Working Patterns, Motivation and Morale - 2022/23 - NHS England Digital