Four in ten adults registered with an NHS dentist in Scotland have not been seen on the NHS in two years
NHS dentists in Scotland have 4.34 million adults on their lists, and since 2010 a registration has lasted for life. Being on a list is not the same as being seen. At 31 December 2025, the latest date with figures for every NHS board, 42.4% of registered adults, 1.84 million, had not had an NHS examination or treatment in the previous two years. That counts everyone still on a list, including people who now go private or have moved away. It runs from 30.2% in NHS Borders to 59.0% in NHS Shetland. Public Health Scotland's one newer figure, for all of Scotland at 31 March 2026, had barely moved: 62.1% of registered patients of all ages had been seen, against 62.0% in December.
Practice Radar shows a dental practice where it ranks against every practice nearby, and does the work to move up.
Thirty days free. No card, and nothing starts automatically when it ends.
Key findings
- Four in ten adults registered with an NHS dentist in Scotland, 42.4% or 1.84 million, had not been seen for an NHS examination or treatment in the two years to 31 December 2025. Among registered children it was 17.0%, about 155,000.
- Registered means on a list, for life. A registration has not lapsed since April 2010, so the lists hold people who now go private, have moved away or have not been in. Registrations outnumber residents at ages 13 to 17 and 35 to 44, and Public Health Scotland said in March 2025 that it was looking into duplicate records and people who have left Scotland. Measured against everyone who lives in Scotland, 45.0% of adults were not seen as registered NHS patients in those two years.
- 30.2% to 59.0% is the range of the adult figure across Scotland's 14 NHS boards, from NHS Borders to NHS Shetland. These are NHS board figures. They are not published for council areas.
- 53.3% against 62.5%. That is the share of registered adults seen in the most deprived fifth of Scotland and in the least deprived fifth, a gap of 9.2 points. For children it is 77.0% against 87.6%. The gap runs the same way in every board that has both kinds of area.
- It is improving. The share of registered adults seen rose from 55.3% at 30 June 2024 to 57.6% at 31 December 2025, and of registered children from 79.6% to 83.0%. Both rose in all 14 boards.
- 76.0% of Primary 1 children inspected in 2026 had no obvious decay experience (95% confidence interval 75.4% to 76.6%), the highest figure on record. NHS board results run from 72.0% in NHS Fife (67.7% to 76.3%) to 90.2% in NHS Shetland (87.7% to 92.7%). Results for the 25 smaller partnership areas run from 64.6% in Glasgow City (61.9% to 67.2%) to 87.6% in East Dunbartonshire (84.6% to 90.6%). Public Health Scotland says partnership results are not directly comparable with board and Scotland results.
Scotland measures NHS dentistry in its own way. People register with an NHS dentist, and since April 2010 a registration has lasted for life, unless the patient or the dentist asks for it to be withdrawn. So Public Health Scotland publishes two figures. Registration is how many people are on an NHS dentist's list. Participation is how many of those registered patients had contact with NHS primary dental care, for an examination or for treatment, in the two years before the count. A registered patient who has not been in for two years is still registered, and is not participating.
That makes the registered total a list, not a count of current patients. Someone who registered years ago and now pays privately, or who has moved to England, can still be on it. In the notes to its March 2025 tables, Public Health Scotland said it was investigating why registration rates are so high. It named three things: lifetime registration when patients move out of Scotland but stay in the UK, possible duplicate registrations, and records that cannot be closed automatically. So 42.4% is the share of adult registrations with no NHS examination or treatment in two years. It is not the share of people who tried to see an NHS dentist and could not, and it is not the share who saw no dentist at all. Section 4 sets the same count against everyone who lives in Scotland.
The figures are for 31 December 2025, the latest date for which Public Health Scotland has published tables for every NHS board. One newer figure exists, for Scotland as a whole at 31 March 2026, and it is in section 5. The next report is listed for 24 November 2026. With the board figures are the results of this year's National Dental Inspection Programme, which looked at the teeth of Primary 1 children in every part of Scotland and was published on 27 October 2026.
Two things about the geography matter. Registration and participation are published by NHS board, not by council area. Where a council area is shown with a participation figure here, it is the figure for its NHS board, and it should be quoted as the board's. In six places the board and the council cover the same ground: Fife, the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. The Primary 1 results are published for smaller areas, the health and social care partnerships, and a partnership is a council area everywhere except Clackmannanshire and Stirling, which share one. There is a search box in section 6 to find any council area, and the full table is free to download.
1. Four in ten registered adults have not been seen on the NHS in two years
At 31 December 2025, 4,338,625 adults in Scotland were registered with an NHS dentist. 2,498,760 of them, 57.6%, had been seen for an NHS examination or treatment in the previous two years. The other 1,839,865, 42.4%, had not. Two years is the test Public Health Scotland uses.
Registered patients seen by an NHS dentist in the last two years, by NHS board
The boards are far apart. In NHS Borders, 69.8% of registered adults had been seen, so 30.2% had not. In NHS Shetland, 41.0% had been seen and 59.0% had not. The three island boards and NHS Highland have the four lowest shares seen. The island boards also have the smallest lists in Scotland, between 15,225 and 19,101 registered adults each. The tables do not say why a patient was not seen, and nothing in them is a measure of a board or of its dental teams. Among the large mainland boards, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (56.6%) and NHS Lothian (57.8%) sit close to the Scottish figure, and NHS Tayside (65.5%) and NHS Ayrshire and Arran (63.0%) well above it.
| NHS board | Registered adults seen in two years | Not seen | Seen, June 2024 | Registered children seen in two years | Seen, June 2024 | Adults registered, as published (share of mid-2022 population, stops at 100%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHS Borders | 69.8% | 30.2% | 67.3% | 88.5% | 84.9% | 86.3% |
| NHS Tayside | 65.5% | 34.5% | 62.8% | 85.7% | 82.6% | 85.5% |
| NHS Ayrshire and Arran | 63.0% | 37.0% | 59.8% | 84.6% | 80.6% | 100.0% |
| NHS Fife | 61.6% | 38.4% | 59.1% | 81.7% | 79.3% | 84.3% |
| NHS Grampian | 61.1% | 38.9% | 57.8% | 83.9% | 80.9% | 89.7% |
| NHS Forth Valley | 60.5% | 39.5% | 60.2% | 83.4% | 82.0% | 100.0% |
| NHS Lanarkshire | 59.2% | 40.8% | 57.2% | 83.3% | 80.0% | 100.0% |
| NHS Lothian | 57.8% | 42.2% | 55.4% | 84.4% | 81.7% | 95.7% |
| NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 56.6% | 43.4% | 54.8% | 81.7% | 78.4% | 100.0% |
| NHS Dumfries and Galloway | 56.5% | 43.5% | 51.7% | 84.8% | 78.2% | 61.4% |
| NHS Highland | 53.8% | 46.2% | 51.5% | 81.1% | 76.6% | 84.4% |
| NHS Western Isles | 52.4% | 47.6% | 46.7% | 77.3% | 65.4% | 88.3% |
| NHS Orkney | 50.3% | 49.7% | 42.5% | 66.9% | 63.4% | 84.2% |
| NHS Shetland | 41.0% | 59.0% | 37.8% | 79.8% | 72.1% | 88.8% |
| Scotland | 57.6% | 42.4% | 55.3% | 83.0% | 79.6% | 97.7% |
Three checks on the Scottish figure. First, 132,792 registrations cannot be placed in any NHS board, and 6.2% of those patients had been seen. They are in the Scottish total and pull it down, so eight of the 14 boards sit above it. Leaving them out, 40.8% of registered adults had not been seen: still four in ten. Second, it is not one age group. In every adult age band, between 34.6% and 48.2% had not been seen. The band seen least is people aged 75 and over, at 51.8%, and the band seen most is 65 to 74, at 65.4%. Third, the gap between boards is not down to the age of their patients. Giving every board Scotland's mix of adult ages moves no board by more than 1.0 point and leaves the order unchanged. Doing the same for deprivation, in the 11 boards that have all five deprivation fifths, leaves the same boards at each end.
See this for your own town.
Practice Radar does not hold NHS registration figures. It shows the search side of a local market: every practice competing with yours on one map, sized by the share of local search each one holds, re-checked every week. The sample town shows the whole thing now, with no sign-up.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
Thirty days free. No card, and nothing starts automatically when it ends.
2. Children are seen more than adults, and a quarter of teenagers are not
907,694 children were registered at 31 December 2025, and 83.0% of them had been seen in the previous two years. That leaves 17.0%, about 155,000 registered children, who had not.
The figure falls with age. Among registered children aged 3 to 5 it is 91.1%, at 6 to 12 it is 84.3%, and at 13 to 17 it is 75.3%, so a quarter of registered teenagers had not been seen in two years. The figure for under-threes, 99.1%, needs care: most children that young are registered at their first visit, so nearly all of them count as seen, and only 42.6% of under-threes are registered at all.
Across boards the share of registered children seen runs from 66.9% in NHS Orkney to 88.5% in NHS Borders. Every mainland board is between 81.1% and 88.5%. In the island boards it is 66.9% in NHS Orkney, 77.3% in NHS Western Isles and 79.8% in NHS Shetland, on lists of between 3,171 and 4,181 registered children.
3. The deprivation gap runs the same way in every board
Public Health Scotland splits registered patients by how deprived their home area is, using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, in five equal groups from the most deprived fifth of Scotland to the least. In the most deprived fifth, 53.3% of registered adults had been seen in two years. In the least deprived fifth it was 62.5%, a gap of 9.2 points. For children the figures are 77.0% and 87.6%, a gap of 10.6 points. In the most deprived fifth alone, 403,500 registered adults had not been seen.
Registered patients seen in the last two years, by how deprived their home area is
This is not a matter of which boards happen to hold the most deprived areas. Of the 14 boards, 11 have areas in both the most and the least deprived fifths, and in all 11 a smaller share of registered patients in the most deprived areas had been seen, for adults and for children alike. Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles have no areas in one or both of those fifths.
| NHS board | Adults, most deprived fifth | Adults, least deprived fifth | Gap, points | Children, most deprived fifth | Children, least deprived fifth | Gap, points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHS Dumfries and Galloway | 49.1% | 65.6% | 16.5 | 76.2% | 89.3% | 13.1 |
| NHS Ayrshire and Arran | 56.1% | 71.3% | 15.2 | 79.7% | 90.7% | 11.0 |
| NHS Tayside | 56.6% | 71.0% | 14.4 | 78.7% | 90.4% | 11.7 |
| NHS Lanarkshire | 53.1% | 66.1% | 13.0 | 77.1% | 89.5% | 12.4 |
| NHS Grampian | 50.5% | 60.7% | 10.2 | 72.0% | 84.2% | 12.2 |
| NHS Forth Valley | 54.1% | 64.2% | 10.1 | 76.6% | 88.8% | 12.2 |
| NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 52.0% | 62.0% | 10.0 | 76.8% | 88.5% | 11.7 |
| NHS Borders | 61.5% | 71.3% | 9.8 | 83.0% | 92.5% | 9.5 |
| NHS Fife | 56.0% | 63.8% | 7.8 | 74.4% | 86.0% | 11.6 |
| NHS Highland | 49.5% | 55.1% | 5.6 | 73.8% | 86.5% | 12.7 |
| NHS Lothian | 53.3% | 58.4% | 5.1 | 77.4% | 87.3% | 9.9 |
| Scotland | 53.3% | 62.5% | 9.2 | 77.0% | 87.6% | 10.6 |
The gap has narrowed a little. At 30 June 2024 it was 10.3 points for adults and 13.1 points for children. Participation has risen in every fifth since then, and by more in the most deprived fifth than in the least deprived.
4. The lists hold more names than some places have people
Because registration is for life, the share of people registered is very high: 97.7% of adults and 90.2% of children on Public Health Scotland's own figures, which divide by mid-2022 population estimates and stop at 100%. In four boards, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lanarkshire, there are at least as many registered adults as adults in that estimate. The note to the December 2025 tables puts rates of 100% down to the lag between the population estimate and the registration data.
The lag is not the whole reason. Set against National Records of Scotland's mid-2025 estimates, the same year as the count, registered adults come to 95.5% of Scotland's adult population, and they still outnumber the adult population in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Lanarkshire, at 100.5% and 100.9%. Across Scotland there are 75,298 more registrations than residents at ages 13 to 17 and 35 to 44 (105.9% and 107.9% of the population at those ages). A further 127,349 adult registrations have no known NHS board, and 4.9% of those patients had been seen. High registration rates are what Public Health Scotland said in March 2025 that it was investigating. So some of the registrations with no visit in two years will be of people who are no longer there to be seen. The tables do not say how many.
Registration is not high everywhere. In NHS Dumfries and Galloway, 61.4% of adults are registered with an NHS dentist, by far the lowest of any board. Nine boards are below 90%.
A measure that does not depend on the lists is the registered patients who were seen in two years as a share of everyone who lives in the board. We divided Public Health Scotland's counts by National Records of Scotland's mid-2025 population estimates. For Scotland it is 55.0% of adults and 75.2% of children, so 45.0% of adults living in Scotland were not seen as registered NHS patients in two years. For adults it runs from 34.5% in NHS Dumfries and Galloway and 36.5% in NHS Shetland to 63.2% in NHS Ayrshire and Arran. This counts NHS care for registered patients only. Someone seen privately, or seen once in an emergency without being registered, is not in it, so a low figure can mean more private care or fewer people registered as well as fewer registered patients seen.
| NHS board | Adults registered, as published (mid-2022 population, stops at 100%) | Adults registered, share of mid-2025 adult population | Registered adults seen, share of all adults | Registered children seen, share of all children |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHS Dumfries and Galloway | 61.4% | 61.1% | 34.5% | 71.5% |
| NHS Shetland | 88.8% | 89.0% | 36.5% | 74.8% |
| NHS Orkney | 84.2% | 84.3% | 42.4% | 55.1% |
| NHS Highland | 84.4% | 83.6% | 44.9% | 70.6% |
| NHS Western Isles | 88.3% | 88.7% | 46.5% | 67.4% |
| NHS Fife | 84.3% | 83.1% | 51.2% | 73.9% |
| NHS Lothian | 95.7% | 92.0% | 53.2% | 75.9% |
| NHS Grampian | 89.7% | 88.2% | 53.9% | 75.2% |
| NHS Tayside | 85.5% | 84.4% | 55.3% | 73.3% |
| NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 100.0% | 99.9% | 56.5% | 76.7% |
| NHS Lanarkshire | 100.0% | 100.9% | 59.7% | 74.8% |
| NHS Borders | 86.3% | 85.7% | 59.8% | 77.6% |
| NHS Forth Valley | 100.0% | 99.0% | 59.9% | 74.8% |
| NHS Ayrshire and Arran | 100.0% | 100.5% | 63.2% | 75.8% |
| Scotland | 97.7% | 95.5% | 55.0% | 75.2% |
5. The share seen has risen at every count since June 2024
Board figures for participation have been published every quarter in this series since 30 June 2024, after Scotland changed how NHS dentists are paid in November 2023. Over those seven counts the share of registered adults seen has risen every quarter, from 55.3% to 57.6%, and of registered children from 79.6% to 83.0%. Both rose in all 14 boards. The largest rise for adults was in NHS Orkney, up 7.8 points, and the smallest in NHS Forth Valley, up 0.3 points. For children the largest was in NHS Western Isles, up 11.9 points.
Public Health Scotland's latest report, published on 26 May 2026, gives figures for Scotland as a whole at 31 March 2026. 5,273,339 people of all ages were registered and 62.1% of them had been seen in two years, against 62.0% at 31 December 2025. In the most deprived fifth 53.4% of registered adults and 77.4% of registered children had been seen, against 62.4% and 87.7% in the least deprived fifth. That release put its board figures in an online dashboard, not in data tables, so the board tables here stop at December. The next report, covering April to September 2026, is listed for 24 November 2026.
6. Three in four Primary 1 children have no obvious decay, and areas inside one board can be far apart
Each school year the National Dental Inspection Programme looks at the teeth of children in Primary 1 and Primary 7. In 2026 the detailed inspection was of Primary 1 children: 13,294 of them, about a quarter of the year group, drawn from every NHS board. Its headline measure is the share with no obvious decay experience, which means no primary tooth that is visibly decayed into the dentine, missing because of decay, or filled.
In 2026 that share was 76.0% for Scotland, with a 95% confidence interval of 75.4% to 76.6%. It was 73.2% in 2024 and 42.3% when the series began in 1988, and it is the highest on record. The other 24.0% had at least one tooth with obvious decay experience.
The deprivation gap is wider here than in attendance. Among inspected children living in the most deprived fifth of Scotland, 62.0% had no obvious decay experience. In the least deprived fifth it was 87.3%, a gap of 25.3 points. The gap was 30.9 points in 2008 and 23.6 points in 2024.
NHS board results run from 72.0% in NHS Fife (95% confidence interval 67.7% to 76.3%) to 90.2% in NHS Shetland (87.7% to 92.7%). Five boards have a confidence interval lying wholly above Scotland's: NHS Borders, NHS Highland, NHS Lothian, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland. One lies wholly below it: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. For the rest, the intervals overlap Scotland's.
Below board level the results are published for health and social care partnerships, in the eight boards that have more than one. Public Health Scotland weights those results with deprivation categories specific to each board, and says they are therefore not directly comparable with the board and Scotland results. Every council area in Scotland is on the chart below. Search for one to read its result and its confidence interval, with the participation figures for its NHS board.
Primary 1 children with no obvious decay experience, 2026, by council area
The 25 partnership results run from 64.6% in Glasgow City (95% confidence interval 61.9% to 67.2%) to 87.6% in East Dunbartonshire (84.6% to 90.6%), both in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Glasgow City and Dundee City (66.4%, 61.4% to 71.4%) are the two partnerships below 70%. Partnership results are not directly comparable with NHS board or Scotland results.
| Council area (partnership) | NHS board | No obvious decay experience | 95% confidence interval | Children inspected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glasgow City | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 64.6% | 61.9% to 67.2% | 1,022 |
| Dundee City | NHS Tayside | 66.4% | 61.4% to 71.4% | 350 |
| North Lanarkshire | NHS Lanarkshire | 71.2% | 68.2% to 74.2% | 675 |
| South Ayrshire | NHS Ayrshire and Arran | 71.4% | 67.3% to 75.5% | 312 |
| Inverclyde | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 73.3% | 69.2% to 77.4% | 286 |
| Falkirk | NHS Forth Valley | 73.6% | 71.2% to 76.1% | 717 |
| West Dunbartonshire | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 73.9% | 69.6% to 78.1% | 328 |
| Aberdeen City | NHS Grampian | 74.1% | 70.9% to 77.3% | 552 |
| East Ayrshire | NHS Ayrshire and Arran | 74.5% | 70.9% to 78.2% | 374 |
| Angus | NHS Tayside | 74.6% | 70.0% to 79.1% | 290 |
| Council area (partnership) | NHS board | No obvious decay experience | 95% confidence interval | Children inspected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Dunbartonshire | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 87.6% | 84.6% to 90.6% | 409 |
| East Renfrewshire | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | 85.2% | 82.1% to 88.4% | 385 |
| Highland | NHS Highland | 83.0% | 79.0% to 87.1% | 291 |
| East Lothian | NHS Lothian | 81.9% | 78.7% to 85.1% | 389 |
| Perth and Kinross | NHS Tayside | 81.7% | 78.0% to 85.3% | 312 |
| West Lothian | NHS Lothian | 80.8% | 77.1% to 84.5% | 373 |
| City of Edinburgh | NHS Lothian | 79.8% | 77.1% to 82.6% | 752 |
| Argyll and Bute | NHS Highland | 79.7% | 76.5% to 83.0% | 336 |
| South Lanarkshire | NHS Lanarkshire | 78.6% | 75.7% to 81.6% | 626 |
| Clackmannanshire and Stirling | NHS Forth Valley | 78.6% | 76.4% to 80.9% | 646 |
Six council areas have no partnership result of their own, because their NHS board covers the same area. Their figure is the NHS board result: Dumfries and Galloway 73.0% (69.5% to 76.4%), Fife 72.0% (67.7% to 76.3%), the Western Isles 79.1% (76.0% to 82.2%), Orkney Islands 83.8% (82.1% to 85.5%), Scottish Borders 83.3% (79.9% to 86.8%) and Shetland Islands 90.2% (87.7% to 92.7%).
Partnerships inside the same board are weighted the same way and can be compared with each other. The widest gap of that kind is in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, where Glasgow City is at 64.6% and East Dunbartonshire at 87.6%, 23.0 points apart with confidence intervals that do not overlap. In NHS Tayside, Dundee City is at 66.4% and Perth and Kinross at 81.7%. A partnership in one board should be set against a partnership in another with care, and not against a board or Scotland figure.
Decay in Primary 1 and attendance are different things, and across the 14 boards one does not predict the other. The island boards have the lowest shares of registered patients seen and some of the highest shares of Primary 1 children with no obvious decay experience. Nothing here shows that seeing a dentist more or less often is the reason for a board's decay figure.
What to do about it
If you report on or represent an area, find it in the chart in section 6 or in the area file. The participation figures are for the NHS board, so quote them as the board's, with their date, 31 December 2025. The Primary 1 figure is for the health and social care partnership, and its confidence interval belongs beside it. The headline is that four in ten adults on NHS dentists' lists had no NHS examination or treatment in two years. It does not show that they could not get one. The useful local questions are how many of the people on the lists still live there and want NHS care, and what is in place to invite them back.
If your practice holds NHS registrations, the board figure is a yardstick for your own list. Registration in Scotland is for life, so every list holds people who have not been in for years, and some who have moved away. Count how many of your registered adults have had no examination in two years and set it against your board's figure in the table in section 1. An NHS examination is free for everyone in Scotland, so an invitation to a check-up costs the patient nothing. Across Scotland the registered patients least often seen are adults aged 25 to 44, people aged 75 and over, people in the most deprived areas and, among children, teenagers. Those are the recall lists to start with.
If you see young children, say so where parents look. Fewer than half of under-threes in Scotland are registered with a dentist. A practice that registers babies and says so on its website and its Google listing makes that easy for a new parent to find.
If you are private, or thinking about your mix, these figures are a reminder that being on an NHS list is not the same as being a regular NHS patient. In NHS Dumfries and Galloway, about four adults in ten are not registered with any NHS dentist. Across Scotland 1.84 million registered adults have not been seen on the NHS in two years. Some of them see a dentist privately, some have moved away, and some see no dentist at all. The figures do not say how many are in each group. Anyone who looks for a dentist online sees what a search for one nearby shows them. Check what that is in your town: whether your practice appears, and whether your listing says plainly what you offer and whether you are taking new patients.
How we did this
Registration and participation. Public Health Scotland, NHS dental data monitoring report: the data tables published with each quarterly release from the quarter ending June 2024 (27 August 2024) to the quarter ending December 2025 (24 February 2026). The tables count patients by the NHS board of their home address, in 11 age bands, with children defined as under 18 at the count. Registration counts people registered with an NHS dentist at the date, leaving out registrations held in abeyance. Participation counts registered patients who had contact with NHS primary dental care for examination or treatment in the previous two years. It is restricted to registered patients, so someone who only attends for occasional or emergency treatment is not counted. The share not seen is 100 minus the participation rate. Public Health Scotland marks the latest count as provisional.
What registration does and does not mean. Lifetime registration began in April 2010. Before that a registration lapsed after a set time without a visit, and Public Health Scotland's 24 January 2023 release says the change drove up registration rates and affected participation rates. NHS inform says a registration lasts for life unless the patient or the dentist asks for it to be withdrawn, and that it can transfer when the patient is treated by another dentist. The March 2025 tables carry a note headed Registration rates exceeding 100%, which says Public Health Scotland is investigating the effect of lifetime registration when patients move outside Scotland but remain within the UK, potential duplicate registrations arising from incomplete or inaccurate patient details, and cases where the absence of a patient identifier prevents automatic deregistration. The December 2025 tables do not repeat that note. They say only that rates of 100% are due to the lag between the population estimate and the registration data. Registrations with no known NHS board are counted for Scotland and for no board.
Council areas. Council area, health and social care partnership and NHS board codes and names are from the Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data geography lookup. All 32 council areas, 31 partnerships and 14 boards are in the file with their codes. Participation is not published for council areas. In the file a council area's row holds its NHS board's participation figures in columns whose names begin nhs_board_, and nothing in the columns that hold an area's own figures.
Deprivation. The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, in Scotland-level fifths, by the registered patient's home area, as published in the same tables.
Population. Public Health Scotland's registration rates for 31 December 2025 use National Records of Scotland's mid-2022 population estimates and stop at 100%. They are quoted as published. For registered adults and registered patients seen as a share of everyone living in a board, we used National Records of Scotland's mid-2025 estimates by NHS board and single year of age, under 18 and 18 and over, the same year as the count. Using the mid-2022 estimates instead moves no board's adult figure for patients seen by more than 2.2 points, and Scotland's from 55.0% to 56.3%.
Years before 2024. None are used. Public Health Scotland's earlier annual series, which ended with September 2022, defined participation as contact with general dental services. The current tables count contact with NHS primary dental care, which is general dental services and the Public Dental Service together. The two are not the same measure and there is no date at which both were published.
Rounding. Percentages are shown to one decimal place. Every difference in points is taken between the figures as shown, so it can be checked by subtraction.
Primary 1 children. Public Health Scotland, National Dental Inspection Programme 2026, published 27 October 2026: the Detailed Inspection of 13,294 Primary 1 children, 24.4% of the estimated year group. Board and Scotland figures are weighted to represent all Primary 1 children and carry 95% confidence intervals. The figures by deprivation fifth are for the children inspected, unweighted. Partnership results are from Table A5, which says they are weighted using NHS board-specific deprivation categories and are therefore not directly comparable with results in the main report. The six boards that are a single council area have no separate partnership table, so those council areas carry the board result and are left out of the partnership tables. The smallest number of children behind any council area's figure is 172.
Controls we ran. The Scottish figure without the 132,792 registrations that have no known board: 40.8% of registered adults not seen. Every adult age band on its own: between 34.6% and 48.2% not seen. On a population basis in place of a registration basis: 45.0% of all adults were not seen as registered patients. Boards given Scotland's mix of adult ages: the range is 40.8% to 68.8% seen, against 41.0% to 69.8% as published, with the same boards at each end. The 11 boards with all five deprivation fifths given Scotland's mix of fifths: 53.1% to 68.3%, against 53.8% to 69.8% as published. The order of boards at June 2024 and at December 2025 is almost the same (rank correlation 0.97, where 1 is identical). These are counts of every registered patient, not a sample, and the smallest board has 15,225 registered adults. Across the 14 boards the share of registered children seen and the share of Primary 1 children with no obvious decay experience are not clearly related (rank correlation minus 0.3, where 0 is no relationship).
What this is not. It is not a count of people without a dentist, and it does not show how many people tried to get an NHS appointment and could not. It is not a measure of private dentistry, which none of these sources count. It is not comparable with England or Wales. England has no registration, and counts patients seen in a period as a share of the whole population. Wales does the same. Scotland's participation rate is a share of registered patients. The measures answer different questions, so the countries cannot be set against each other on these figures.
Questions we get asked about this data
Does this mean four in ten adults in Scotland cannot get an NHS dentist?
No. It means 42.4% of the adults on NHS dentists' lists at 31 December 2025 had no NHS examination or treatment in the two years before. A registration lasts for life, so the lists include people who now go private, people who have moved away and people who have not needed or sought an appointment. The figures do not count anyone who tried to book and could not.
Is the participation figure measured for my council area?
No. Public Health Scotland publishes registration and participation in data tables by NHS board. Where a council area is shown with a participation figure, it is the figure for its NHS board. In Fife, the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles the board and the council cover the same area. The Primary 1 decay figure is published for each health and social care partnership, which is the council area everywhere except Clackmannanshire and Stirling.
What does participation mean?
A registered patient is participating if they had contact with NHS primary dental care, for an examination or for treatment, in the two years before the count. At 31 December 2025, 57.6% of registered adults and 83.0% of registered children in Scotland were. Someone who has gone private, moved away without the registration being closed, or not been in, is registered and not participating.
Why do some boards show 100% of adults registered?
Public Health Scotland stops the rate at 100% and, in its December 2025 tables, puts it down to the population estimate being older than the registration count. That is part of it. Against a population estimate for the same year, registered adults still outnumber the adult population in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Lanarkshire. A registration lasts for life, and in March 2025 Public Health Scotland said it was investigating people who have left Scotland, duplicate records and records that cannot be closed automatically.
How up to date is this?
The board figures are for 31 December 2025, published on 24 February 2026, and are the latest that Public Health Scotland has published as data tables. Its figure for Scotland as a whole at 31 March 2026 is 62.1% of registered patients of all ages seen in two years, against 62.0% in December. Its next report, covering April to September 2026, is listed for 24 November 2026. The Primary 1 results are from the school year 2025 to 2026.
Can Scotland be compared with England or Wales?
Not on these figures. England and Wales count the people seen by an NHS dentist in a period as a share of the whole population. Scotland counts the registered patients seen as a share of those registered. The closest Scottish equivalent is in section 4: 55.0% of all adults in Scotland were registered and seen in two years. Even that leaves out anyone treated without being registered.
For editors
The headline figure is 100 minus Public Health Scotland's participation rate for adults at 31 December 2025: 1,839,865 of 4,338,625 registered adults, 42.4%, had no NHS examination or treatment in the previous two years. It is a share of registrations, which last for life, and not of people seeking care. Participation is published for NHS boards and not for council areas. The newer figure for Scotland as a whole, at 31 March 2026, is 62.1% of registered patients of all ages seen. Figures for 31 December 2025 are marked provisional by Public Health Scotland, and its next report is listed for 24 November 2026. Primary 1 results for partnerships are not directly comparable with board and Scotland results.
The data is free to reuse with attribution to Practice Radar, under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Sources: Public Health Scotland, NHS dental data monitoring report (quarters ending June 2024 to December 2025, and the main points for March 2026), Public Health Scotland, National Dental Inspection Programme 2026, and National Records of Scotland mid-2025 population estimates. The area file, scotland-nhs-dentistry-by-council-2026.csv, has one row for Scotland, one for each NHS board and one for each council area, with area codes.
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, “Four in ten adults registered with an NHS dentist in Scotland have not been seen on the NHS in two years”, 12 November 2026, https://practiceradar.co.uk/blog/scotland-nhs-dentistry-by-council-2026
The data. NHS dentistry in Scotland by NHS board and council area (CSV, 47 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. Source: Public Health Scotland. Population estimates: National Records of Scotland, © Crown copyright.”
See your own town
Practice Radar shows a dental practice how it appears when people nearby search for a dentist, on Google Maps, in ordinary search results and in AI answers, and which practices appear above it.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
Thirty days free. No card, and nothing starts automatically when it ends.