60 constituencies where fewer children see an NHS dentist, in councils where tooth decay is significantly worse than England's
MPs and local papers work by constituency. NHS dental data mostly does not. We rebuilt two Practice Radar studies for every one of England's 543 Westminster constituencies: how many of the children who live there saw an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026, the tooth decay figure for the council they sit in, and what the NHS contracts there are paid. In 60 constituencies, home to about 1.6 million children, the council's 5-year-olds have decay significantly worse than England's and fewer of the constituency's own children were seen than in England as a whole.
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Key findings
- 60 constituencies, home to about 1.6 million children, sit in councils where 5-year-olds' decay is significantly worse than England's 22.4%, and fewer of their own children saw an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026 than in England as a whole (58.0%). 30 of them are in London.
- 32.2% to 74.5% is the range in the share of children seen across England's 543 constituencies, from Cities of London and Westminster to Sheffield Hallam. In 62 constituencies, home to 1,436,000 children, fewer than half were seen.
- 18.7 points separate two constituencies wholly inside the same council: 46.1% of children seen in Birmingham Ladywood, 64.7% in Sutton Coldfield. In 42 of the 77 councils with two or more constituencies wholly inside them, the gap is 5 points or more.
- 47.5% of 1 to 5-year-olds were seen in the middle constituency. In 111 constituencies it was under 40%.
- £33.57 to £40.58 a UDA is what the median NHS contract is paid across the middle 80% of constituencies. Of that £7.01 spread, about £4 is what small numbers alone produce, and almost all the rest follows the integrated care board a constituency sits in.
In September Practice Radar published two studies of NHS dentistry in England: children's tooth decay and NHS dental contact, council by council, and what every NHS dental contract is paid, by integrated care board. MPs, their offices and local papers work by constituency, so here are the same figures for each of England's 543 Westminster constituencies on the boundaries used at the July 2024 general election. There is a search box below to find any constituency, and the full table is free to download.
Three measures are used, and they are not all measured the same way. Which is which matters.
Children seen is measured for the constituency itself. It is the share of the under-18s living in the constituency who had at least one NHS dental course of treatment in the previous 12 months, from the NHS's own claims data. NHSBSA counts the children by home ward, the ward counts add up into constituencies, and we divide by ONS's own estimate of the children living in each constituency.
Tooth decay is not measured for the constituency. It is the share of 5-year-olds, examined at school in the 2023/24 national survey, with at least one tooth decayed into the dentine, missing because of decay, or filled. The survey is a sample published by council, so a constituency can only carry its council's figure. Where a constituency crosses a council boundary, we average its councils' figures, weighted by how many of its children live in each. When this study gives a decay figure for a constituency, it is the council's figure, and it should be quoted as that.
NHS contract values are measured for the constituency. Every NHS general dental contract has a practice postcode, which places it in a constituency. The price per UDA is what a contract pays for a year divided by the units of dental activity it must deliver. A band 1 check-up earns one UDA, a crown twelve. We publish pooled figures for each constituency: the median and, where there are 8 or more contracts, the quartiles. No contract or practice is named.
1. 60 constituencies combine high council decay with low NHS contact for their children
In 60 constituencies two things are true at once. The council they sit in has 5-year-old decay that OHID classes as significantly worse than England's 22.4%. And a smaller share of the constituency's own children saw an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026 than in England as a whole, 58.0% when England is measured the same way. Both are compared before rounding. Together they are home to about 1.6 million children, in 29 councils. 50 sit inside a single council. The other 10 cross a council boundary, and every council they cross that took part in the survey has significantly worse decay than England.
60 constituencies sit in councils with significantly more decay than England and see fewer of their own children
Outside London, Birmingham Ladywood has the lowest share on the list. It is home to 40,074 children. Birmingham's decay figure is 30.2%, and 46.1% of Ladywood's children were seen, 33.4% of its 1 to 5-year-olds. In East Ham and Barking, 47.6% and 47.9% of children were seen, in councils with decay of 40.1% (Newham) and 34.4% (Barking and Dagenham). Brent East and Brent West carry the highest council decay figure in England, Brent's 43.4%, and 51.7% and 53.9% of their children were seen. Outside the big cities, six Cornish constituencies are on the list, from Camborne and Redruth at 47.9% of children seen to South East Cornwall at 56.2%, all carrying Cornwall's 29.8%.
| Constituency | Council the decay figure comes from | 5-year-olds with decay, council figure, 2023/24 | Children seen, year to March 2026 | Aged 1 to 5 seen, year to March 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finchley and Golders Green | Barnet | 29.2% | 43.5% | 30.3% |
| Birmingham Ladywood | Birmingham | 30.2% | 46.1% | 33.4% |
| East Ham | Newham | 40.1% | 47.6% | 32.8% |
| Barking | Barking and Dagenham | 34.4% | 47.9% | 33.4% |
| Camborne and Redruth | Cornwall | 29.8% | 47.9% | 34.0% |
| Truro and Falmouth | Cornwall | 29.8% | 48.1% | 34.4% |
| Walsall and Bloxwich | Walsall | 25.3% | 49.1% | 33.9% |
| St Ives | Cornwall | 29.8% | 49.4% | 35.9% |
| Liverpool Riverside | Liverpool | 33.3% | 49.4% | 37.7% |
| West Ham and Beckton | Newham | 40.1% | 49.6% | 37.0% |
| Stratford and Bow | Newham and Tower Hamlets, weighted | 36.8% | 49.6% | 36.4% |
| Poplar and Limehouse | Tower Hamlets | 30.1% | 50.1% | 38.4% |
| Ilford South | Redbridge and Barking and Dagenham, weighted | 34.5% | 50.2% | 33.8% |
| Edmonton and Winchmore Hill | Enfield | 29.2% | 50.4% | 34.2% |
| St Austell and Newquay | Cornwall | 29.8% | 50.5% | 37.7% |
| Birmingham Perry Barr | Birmingham | 30.2% | 50.6% | 38.7% |
| Hendon | Barnet | 29.2% | 50.6% | 38.6% |
| Ilford North | Redbridge | 34.5% | 50.6% | 33.9% |
| Enfield North | Enfield | 29.2% | 50.8% | 36.1% |
| Northampton North | West Northamptonshire | 27.2% | 50.9% | 35.6% |
| Hornsey and Friern Barnet | Haringey and Barnet, weighted | 35.2% | 51.1% | 38.5% |
| Bethnal Green and Stepney | Tower Hamlets | 30.1% | 51.2% | 40.3% |
| Smethwick | Sandwell | 28.9% | 51.2% | 41.7% |
| Birmingham Yardley | Birmingham | 30.2% | 51.4% | 34.1% |
| Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West | Newcastle upon Tyne | 25.6% | 51.5% | 42.1% |
| Birmingham Erdington | Birmingham | 30.2% | 51.5% | 38.2% |
| Dagenham and Rainham | Barking and Dagenham and Havering, weighted | 31.9% | 51.6% | 36.0% |
| Brent East | Brent | 43.4% | 51.7% | 37.7% |
| Islington North | Islington | 28.8% | 51.9% | 39.4% |
| Leyton and Wanstead | Waltham Forest and Redbridge, weighted | 30.4% | 52.2% | 41.3% |
| Hereford and South Herefordshire | Herefordshire | 31.3% | 52.3% | 40.4% |
| Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley | Birmingham | 30.2% | 52.5% | 37.6% |
| Romford | Havering | 27.5% | 52.7% | 37.2% |
| Birmingham Edgbaston | Birmingham | 30.2% | 52.8% | 41.7% |
| Sunderland Central | Sunderland | 27.2% | 52.9% | 49.8% |
| Birmingham Northfield | Birmingham | 30.2% | 53.0% | 41.9% |
| Chipping Barnet | Barnet | 29.2% | 53.5% | 40.3% |
| North Herefordshire | Herefordshire | 31.3% | 53.6% | 42.7% |
| Brent West | Brent | 43.4% | 53.9% | 43.2% |
| West Bromwich | Sandwell | 28.9% | 54.2% | 43.0% |
| Corby and East Northamptonshire | North Northamptonshire | 24.8% | 54.4% | 44.1% |
| North Cornwall | Cornwall | 29.8% | 54.5% | 41.1% |
| Southgate and Wood Green | Enfield and Haringey, weighted | 32.1% | 55.1% | 41.1% |
| Birmingham Selly Oak | Birmingham | 30.2% | 55.4% | 43.3% |
| Blackpool South | Blackpool | 32.1% | 55.5% | 48.3% |
| Ealing North | Ealing | 38.8% | 55.6% | 44.7% |
| Harrow West | Harrow | 27.6% | 55.9% | 44.5% |
| Bexleyheath and Crayford | Bexley | 27.2% | 56.0% | 43.1% |
| Northampton South | West Northamptonshire | 27.2% | 56.0% | 40.5% |
| South East Cornwall | Cornwall | 29.8% | 56.2% | 46.0% |
| Walthamstow | Waltham Forest | 28.7% | 56.3% | 46.6% |
| Hornchurch and Upminster | Havering | 27.5% | 56.7% | 41.4% |
| Hayes and Harlington | Hillingdon | 32.9% | 56.7% | 44.3% |
| Bootle | Sefton | 33.3% | 56.7% | 47.3% |
| Uxbridge and South Ruislip | Hillingdon | 32.9% | 56.8% | 43.2% |
| Chingford and Woodford Green | Waltham Forest and Redbridge, weighted | 30.7% | 57.0% | 42.9% |
| South Northamptonshire | West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire, weighted | 27.1% | 57.1% | 45.6% |
| Nottingham East | Nottingham | 28.0% | 57.4% | 44.1% |
| Harrow East | Harrow and Brent, weighted | 29.8% | 57.6% | 42.7% |
| Wallasey | Wirral | 33.4% | 57.7% | 51.9% |
Three cautions. London holds 30 of the 60, and NHS contact for children there is lower almost everywhere: the middle London constituency saw 51.6% of its children, against 60.0% elsewhere. These figures count NHS care only, so a constituency where many families pay privately will look under-served when it is not. That matters most in better-off seats on this list, such as Finchley and Golders Green, Chipping Barnet, Romford and Hornchurch and Upminster, and least in Birmingham Ladywood, Smethwick, East Ham and Barking, which are in the most deprived quarter of constituencies. Ladywood is the most deprived of all 543 on the 2025 deprivation index, weighted by where children live. And 107 constituencies have no decay figure at all, because their council did not take part in the 2023/24 survey, or councils that did hold less than 80% of their children, so they cannot be placed.
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2. Measuring the constituency, not the council, changes the list
Our council study found 23 councils with significantly worse decay and fewer children seen than England. Large councils hold very different places, and the council average hides that. The 9 constituencies wholly inside Birmingham run from 46.1% of children seen in Ladywood to 64.7% in Sutton Coldfield, an 18.7-point gap inside one council. Of the 77 councils with two or more constituencies wholly inside them, 42 have a gap of 5 points or more between their highest and lowest, and 11 a gap of 10 points or more.
| Council | Lowest constituency | Children seen | Highest constituency | Children seen | Gap, points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | Birmingham Ladywood | 46.1% | Sutton Coldfield | 64.7% | 18.7 |
| North Yorkshire | Harrogate and Knaresborough | 54.9% | Richmond and Northallerton | 72.4% | 17.5 |
| Liverpool | Liverpool Riverside | 49.4% | Liverpool Garston | 65.7% | 16.3 |
| Sheffield | Sheffield Central | 58.6% | Sheffield Hallam | 74.5% | 15.9 |
| County Durham | Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor | 50.5% | North Durham | 64.7% | 14.2 |
| Portsmouth | Portsmouth South | 41.7% | Portsmouth North | 54.5% | 12.8 |
| Walsall | Walsall and Bloxwich | 49.1% | Aldridge-Brownhills | 60.6% | 11.5 |
| East Suffolk | Suffolk Coastal | 60.3% | Lowestoft | 71.8% | 11.4 |
Had each constituency simply been given its council's average, 63 would be on the list above. Measuring each one from its own wards adds 5, Bootle, Corby and East Northamptonshire, Liverpool Riverside, Nottingham East and Wallasey, and takes off 8, among them Sutton Coldfield, Aldridge-Brownhills and Old Bexley and Sidcup, whose children are seen more often than their council's average suggests. Decay cannot be split the same way, because the survey is only published by council. Inside a high-decay council, the constituencies with the lowest NHS contact are the ones to look at first, but nobody can say from these sources whether their children have more or less decay than the council's figure.
3. Every constituency: from 32.2% to 74.5% of children seen
Every constituency in England is on the chart below. Search for one to read its figures: children seen, 1 to 5-year-olds seen, its council's decay figure, and the median price per UDA of its NHS contracts.
Share of each constituency's children seen by an NHS dentist, year to March 2026
The middle constituency saw 58.6% of its children. In 62, home to 1,436,000 children, fewer than half were seen, and 25 of those are in London. The four lowest are all in central London: Cities of London and Westminster (32.2%), Hampstead and Highgate, Kensington and Bayswater and Chelsea and Fulham. All four are in the less deprived half of constituencies, and NHS figures do not count private care, which is likely to matter most in places like these. Outside London the lowest are Glastonbury and Somerton (37.5%) and Taunton and Wellington (37.7%) in Somerset, then Portsmouth South (41.7%). Somerset's decay figure is not significantly different from England's, and Portsmouth did not take part in the survey.
The youngest children are seen least. In the middle constituency 47.5% of 1 to 5-year-olds saw an NHS dentist in the year, and in 111 constituencies it was under 40%.
It is improving. 508 of the 543 constituencies saw a larger share of their children in the year to March 2026 than in the year to March 2024, by a median of 3.5 points.
Deprivation tells you little here. Across constituencies, the share of children seen barely moves with how deprived the area is (rank correlation -0.07, where 0 is no relationship). Decay is the opposite: in our council study, deprivation explained about half of the difference between councils.
4. What NHS contracts are paid, constituency by constituency
516 constituencies have five or more NHS general dental contracts from at least three providers, 5,551 contracts in all. In the middle 80% of them, the median contract is paid between £33.57 and £40.58 a UDA, a gap of £7.01. At the median contract size in England, 11,823 UDAs a year, £7.01 a UDA is £82,879 a year for the same work. The lowest median is £31.34, in Reading West and Mid Berkshire and South Leicestershire, exactly the floor our contract study found under England's contracts this year. The highest is £51.15 in Barrow and Furness, from 7 contracts.
The median NHS contract's price per UDA, constituency by constituency, 2026/27
Some of the spread is the luck of small numbers: the middle constituency has 10 contracts. We tested that by shuffling every contract's price at random across constituencies a few hundred times. Chance alone gives a spread of about £4.15, so about £4 of the £7.01 is small numbers. The real spread is wider, so not all of it is chance. Shuffling prices only among contracts in the same integrated care board gives £6.71, close to the real £7.01. So almost all of the rest is which ICB a constituency is in. Within any one constituency the spread between contracts is still wide, which is what our contract study found: neighbours a mile apart are paid a median £3.15 a UDA apart.
Delivery is a different story. After April to June 2026, the first three months under the new contract terms, the middle constituency had 37.5% of its contracts below 90% of the pace needed to hit their annual target, close to England's 37.7%. In 151 constituencies, half or more were behind. Chance alone would put about 130 constituencies there, so most of the difference between constituencies in delivery is the luck of small numbers, and three months is a short window. We would not rank constituencies on it, and it is in the file for completeness only.
27 constituencies have too few contracts to show: 25 with fewer than five, and 2 where one provider holds half or more. Pooled, their 109 contracts have a median of £37.60 a UDA, and 44.0% were below 90% of pace.
What to do about it
If you represent or report on a constituency, find it in the chart above or in the constituency file. The children-seen figure belongs to the constituency, so it can be quoted as that. The decay figure belongs to the council, so quote it as the council's. If a constituency is on the list in section 1, the useful questions are for the integrated care board: how much NHS dentistry it commissions for children there, and what share of it is being delivered.
If you hold an NHS contract in one of these constituencies, and you have room for children, make sure your NHS website profile says so, since it lists children separately from adults. NHS dental care for children is free, so price is not what keeps a five-year-old away. Capacity and being found matter more. The biggest gap is the 1 to 5 age band, so a short, regular slot for first visits is worth more than a general "accepting children" line.
If you are going into a contract conversation with your ICB, know where your price per UDA sits against the median for your constituency and your ICB. Both are in the files we publish, and neither names any practice.
If you are private, a family plan that brings a child in alongside a paying parent turns a need the NHS is not meeting into a household that stays with you. In the high-decay councils those children will need treatment as well as check-ups, so price the plan for that.
How we did this
Constituencies. All 543 English Westminster parliamentary constituencies on the 2024 boundaries. Constituency codes and names are from the ONS Ward to Westminster Parliamentary Constituency (May 2025) lookup.
Children seen. NHSBSA, NHS Dental Statistics for England 2025/26, published 27 August 2026: the "patients seen by patient location" files at ward level. They count children by the ward they live in (May 2025 wards), for the 12 months to 31 March 2026 and to 31 March 2024. The ward counts were added up into constituencies. 272 of the 6,810 wards have whole output areas in more than one constituency. Each of those was shared out by counting its 2021 census output areas: every live small-user postcode in the ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (February 2026), which places each postcode by its output area, counts as one over the number of small-user postcodes in its output area, so each output area counts once. Output areas are drawn to hold similar numbers of people. Counting postcodes instead moves 63 constituencies by more than half a point, by at most 3.3 points. For 8 wards the ONS ward-to-constituency file does not list the constituency where most of the ward's postcodes fall, and for 6 of them, such as the three Ash wards of Guildford borough, it names only seats none of the ward's postcodes fall in, so the postcodes were used.
Population. NHSBSA's ward file blanks the population as well as the count wherever fewer than five children were seen, so its ward populations are incomplete, and unevenly: at age 0, 3,662 of 5,660 ward cells have no population. Every rate here therefore divides the ward counts by ONS's own small-area population estimates for the constituency, mid-2024 for the year to March 2026 and mid-2023 for the year to March 2024, from Nomis (dataset NM_2014_1). Cells with fewer than five children seen are blank in the source and add nothing to the count. As a check that does not use ONS at all, the ward files on ages 1 to 17, where blank populations are rare, give the same 60 constituencies on the list in section 1.
England. 93,462 children seen in the year to March 2026 had no usable home ward and are in no constituency, so England is measured the same way for comparison: the ward counts over ONS's population, 58.0%. Our council study's 58.9% includes those children, and adding them back here gives 58.8%. NHSBSA's own headline is 60%.
Decay. OHID Fingertips indicator 93563, "percentage of 5 year olds with experience of visually obvious dental decay", 2023/24, as used in our council study. A constituency inside one council takes that council's figure. One crossing councils takes the average of its councils' figures weighted by its children in each, and is shown only where councils with a survey result hold at least 80% of its children. "Significantly worse" means every council the constituency sits in is classed by OHID as significantly worse than England. 436 constituencies have a decay figure and 107 do not.
Contracts. NHSBSA, English Contractor Monthly General Dental Activity: the June 2026 file for each contract's price per UDA, and the April, May and June 2026 files for delivery. The filters are the ones in our contract values study: contracts of 1,000 or more UDAs a year, no NHS trusts or salaried services, and prices between £10 and £100 a UDA, 5,660 contracts in all. Each contract was placed in a constituency by its practice postcode in the ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (August 2026). Every postcode matched. Behind pace means delivery after the three months was below 90% of a quarter of the annual target.
Keeping practices anonymous. Contract values are public, contract by contract, in NHSBSA's files. We still publish only pooled figures. A constituency's contract figures are shown only if it has 5 or more contracts from at least 3 providers and no provider holds half of them, and its quartiles only if it has 8 or more. Constituencies below that are pooled into a single "too few to show" row. In the file, a share of contracts behind pace of 80% or more is shown as "80 or more", so no row can say that every contract in a constituency is behind, and the share is not in the search readout at all.
Controls we ran. The count of 60 depends on where the lines are drawn, so we moved them. Using the ward files alone on ages 1 to 17 gives 60, the same constituencies. Using the year to March 2024 instead gives 64. Counting postcodes instead of output areas gives 61. Drawing the line at our council study's 58.9%, which is not like for like, gives 70. Dropping the significance test, so that any council decay above England's counts, gives 114. The list is between 60 and 70 constituencies on every version that keeps the significance test. Leaving London out altogether, 30 constituencies remain on the list. For contract prices, constituencies with 10 or more contracts give a middle-80% spread of £6.89, close to the £7.01 for all of them, and allowing for contract size gives £6.75.
What this is not. It is not a measure of private dentistry, which none of these sources count. The decay figures are not measured for constituencies and cannot show whether one part of a council has more decay than another. Children are counted where they live, not where their dentist is, and contracts where the practice is, so a constituency's children may well be seen by practices in the next one.
Questions we get asked about this data
Is the tooth decay figure measured for my constituency?
No. The national survey of 5-year-olds is a sample published by council, so each constituency carries its council's figure, or a children-weighted average where it crosses councils. The share of children seen by an NHS dentist is measured for the constituency itself.
How many children in my constituency see an NHS dentist?
Search for the constituency in the chart in section 3, or open the constituency file. Across England's 543 constituencies it ranged from 32.2% to 74.5% in the year to March 2026, with the middle constituency at 58.6%.
Why are some constituencies' contract figures missing?
We publish contract figures only where a constituency has 5 or more NHS contracts from at least 3 providers and no provider holds half of them, so that no single practice can be picked out. 27 constituencies fall below that and are pooled together in the file's last row.
For editors
The data is free to reuse with attribution to Practice Radar, under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Sources: NHSBSA NHS Dental Statistics for England 2025/26 (children seen by ward, years to March 2024 and March 2026), NHSBSA English Contractor Monthly General Dental Activity (April to June 2026), OHID National Dental Epidemiology Programme 2023/24 via Fingertips, and ONS postcode and ward lookups. The constituency file, nhs-dentistry-by-constituency-2026.csv, has one row per constituency with its ONS code. The council-level figures are in our council study and the ICB-level contract figures in our contract values study.
Jack Henty, who compiled this analysis, co-owns Bollington Dental Practice in Cheshire and founded Practice Radar, which measures local dental markets for practices. He is available for interview.
Contact: hello@practiceradar.co.uk
Cite and reuse
To cite this study. Practice Radar, “60 constituencies where fewer children see an NHS dentist, in councils where tooth decay is significantly worse than England's”, 28 October 2026, https://practiceradar.co.uk/blog/nhs-dentistry-by-constituency-2026
The data. NHS dentistry by constituency (CSV, 544 rows), with a README that explains each column.
Licence. The data is free to reuse under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Attribution means crediting Practice Radar and linking to this study. It is built from public sector information, so please also keep these lines: “Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.”
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