Fewer than four in ten children under five in England saw an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026

How many small children in England see an NHS dentist? The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) counts every child NHS dentists treat, by age and by the council the child lives in. We set those counts beside the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate of how many children of the same ages live in each council. The result is one figure for every council in England: the share of its children under five who were seen by an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026. There is a search box below to find any council, and the full table is free to download.

What is counted. A child is counted if they were under five on 31 March 2026 and had at least one course of NHS dental treatment in the 12 months before. A check-up counts. Age is taken at the end of the year, so a child counted as one year old may have been seen while still a baby. Children are counted where they live, not where the dentist is. The figure covers one year, so a child who was not seen in it may have been seen the year before. And only NHS care is counted: a child seen privately is not, so where many families pay privately the share who saw any dentist is higher than the figure here.

The NHS website's advice to parents, as at 12 November 2026, reads: "Take your child to the dentist when their first milk teeth appear, or before they are 12 months old." The line before it reads: "NHS dental care for children is free." Both are on the NHS page Children's teeth, last reviewed on 30 June 2025.

1. 38.2% of under-fives were seen, against 60.0% of all children

In the year to March 2026, 1,146,400 children under five were seen by an NHS dentist in England. ONS estimates that 3,003,917 children of those ages lived in England in mid-2025. That is 38.2%, fewer than four in ten. Among all children up to 17 the share was 60.0%, so the youngest are 21.8 points behind.

This is also NHSBSA's own figure for England. Its national summary tables give 38.2% for children aged 0 to 4 in the 12 months to 31 March 2026, measured against the same mid-2025 population, and 60% for all children. NHSBSA publishes the counts for every council and every year of age, but not this percentage council by council, which is what this study adds. Beside its regional figures NHSBSA prints an older population, for mid-2024, and on that one England's under-fives figure would be 37.3%. Every England figure for the year to March 2026 in this study uses the mid-2025 population unless it says otherwise.

The share of children seen by an NHS dentist rises with every year of age up to 10

Age makes a large difference inside the under-fives. Of the children who were one year old at the end of March, 30.6% had been seen in the year. For two-year-olds it was 44.3%, for three-year-olds 49.8% and for four-year-olds 58.2%. Of babies who had not yet reached their first birthday, 4.6% had been seen. That figure will always be low: a baby born in the winter had only a few weeks in which to be counted, and the NHS website says the first teeth usually come through at around six months. Leave the babies out and 46.0% of one to four-year-olds were seen, still fewer than half.

That leaves about 1.86 million under-fives with no NHS dental visit in the year. The figures do not say how many of them were seen privately, and some were only weeks old. They do not say why a child was not seen. So this is not a count of children who could not get an appointment, and it is not a count of children who have never been to a dentist.

2. Council by council: from 18.1% to 56.2%

Every council is on the chart below. Search for one to read its figures: the share of its under-fives seen, the same share two years earlier, and the share for all its children. A council here means the area and the children who live in it. Councils do not run NHS dentistry, which is commissioned by NHS integrated care boards.

Share of each council's children under five seen by an NHS dentist, year to March 2026

In the middle council 38.5% of under-fives were seen, and eight councils in ten sit between 29.2% and 47.9%. In 39 councils the figure is 30% or lower, and in 13 it is above 50%.

What a low or a high figure can mean. A low figure may mean that families use private dentists, that they could not find an NHS dentist, or that they did not look for one. A high figure may mean the opposite of any of these. The data cannot tell them apart. So a council's figure says how many of its under-fives had NHS dental care in the year, and nothing about why.

The highest is Rossendale in Lancashire at 56.2%, followed by Staffordshire Moorlands (54.9%) and Chorley (54.6%). All ten of the highest are in the North of England or the Midlands.

The lowest is Kensington and Chelsea at 18.1%, then Westminster (20.2%) and Hackney (22.0%). Seven of the ten lowest are London boroughs. Outside London the lowest are Exeter (23.0%), Somerset (23.7%) and West Suffolk (25.4%).

Private care is not counted anywhere in these sources. So in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster, for example, the data cannot rule out that many families use private dentists, and it cannot confirm it either. The ten lowest also include Hackney, Newham and Barking and Dagenham, which are among the 60 most deprived councils in England. And the under-fives figure follows the figure for all children closely: where a small share of under-fives was seen, a small share of older children usually was too. In every one of the 294 councils a smaller share of under-fives was seen than of children as a whole, by a median of 21.3 points.

3. The share rose in 291 of 294 councils in two years

Two years earlier, in the year to March 2024, 33.3% of England's under-fives were seen. The rise to 38.2% is 4.9 points. Most of it is more children being seen: about 125,000 more, a rise of 12.3%. The rest is fewer children to count, because the number of under-fives fell 2.0% between mid-2023 and mid-2025. Had the number of under-fives not changed, the rise would be 4.1 points. Both years are measured the same way, against ONS's estimate for the summer that falls inside the year.

The share of under-fives seen by an NHS dentist has passed its level in the year to March 2020

In the year to 31 March 2020, 36.8% of under-fives had been seen. That year ended eight days after the first national lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020. A year later the share was 10.7%. It has risen every year since and passed its earlier level this year.

The number seen has not passed its earlier level. 1,146,400 under-fives were seen in the year to March 2026, against 1,178,743 in the year to March 2020, about 32,000 fewer. The share is higher because ONS estimates there were 6.3% fewer under-fives in mid-2025 than in mid-2019. In 193 of the 294 councils the share is above its level in the year to March 2020, in 96 it is below and in 5 it is the same.

Almost every council moved the same way over the two years. In 291 of 294 the share was larger than two years earlier, and in 21 it rose by 10 points or more. The median change across all 294 was a rise of 4.9 points. The largest rises were in North Norfolk (21.1% to 39.6%), Ashfield (29.1% to 44.6%) and Arun (25.7% to 41.0%). The share was lower in three councils: Exeter (by 1.4 points), Rutland (0.3) and Teignbridge (less than 0.1).

4. The region says more than how deprived a council is

Added up by region, the share of under-fives seen runs from 29.5% in London to 46.3% in Yorkshire and the Humber. These are the nine ONS regions, made by adding up their councils, on the same mid-2025 populations as the council figures. The figure to compare them with is 37.6%, which is all councils together. It is a little below England's 38.2% because 17,529 of the children seen have no known council, so they are in England's count but in no council or region. London also rose least over the two years, by 2.2 points. Leaving London out, 39.2% of under-fives were seen.

Which region a council is in goes with 53% of the variation between councils in the share of under-fives seen. How deprived a council is tells you almost nothing about where it sits. Across the 294 councils the share of under-fives seen barely moves with the council's deprivation score (rank correlation 0.07, where 0 is no relationship and 1 a perfect one), and only slightly with London left out (0.16). Rotherham and Redcar and Cleveland, both among the 60 most deprived councils, are in the highest ten. York, among the least deprived, is too.

Neighbourhood by neighbourhood the picture is different, with a caution. NHSBSA also publishes children seen by how deprived the child's own neighbourhood is, set against small-area population estimates for mid-2024. ONS does not accredit those small-area estimates as official statistics, so NHSBSA releases this table as management information and not as official statistics. Read the figures as a guide. On that table, 33.5% of under-fives living in the most deprived tenth of neighbourhoods in England were seen, against 41.2% in the least deprived tenth, and the share rises at every step in between. The same holds inside each of the seven NHS regions: in every one, a smaller share of under-fives was seen in the most deprived fifth of neighbourhoods than in the least deprived fifth. The gap is narrowest in London (27.6% against 29.4%) and widest in the Midlands (30.9% against 44.7%).

Under-fives in the most deprived neighbourhoods are seen least

So the two patterns sit on top of each other. Which part of the country a child lives in goes with the larger difference, 16.8 points between the highest and lowest region. Within each region, a child in a more deprived neighbourhood is less likely to have been seen by an NHS dentist, a gap of 7.7 points between the two ends nationally. These are associations in one year's figures. They do not show what causes the difference, and they do not count private care.

What to do about it

If you report on or represent an area, find your council in the chart above or in the council file. Each row gives the share of under-fives seen, the same share two years earlier and the share for all children, so the three comparisons a story needs are in one place. The figure belongs to the children who live in the council, whichever practice saw them. The useful questions are for the integrated care board, which commissions NHS dentistry: how much it commissions for children there, and how much of that is being delivered.

If you hold an NHS contract and have room for children, the largest gap is among the youngest. Fewer than a third of one-year-olds were seen, against nearly six in ten four-year-olds. The families easiest to reach are the ones who already come to you: a parent who attends can be asked whether there is a baby or toddler at home. A short slot kept for first visits is worth more than a general line that children are welcome. Keep your profile on the NHS website up to date, because the NHS page for parents links to its dentist finder.

If you are private, say on your website what a first visit for a small child involves and what it costs, and consider a family plan that brings a child in alongside a paying parent.

If you are a parent, the NHS's advice and its dentist finder are on the NHS page Children's teeth.

How we did this

The count. NHSBSA, NHS Dental Statistics for England 2025/26, published 27 August 2026: the patients seen by patient location files, at council level. They count children by single year of age and by the council the child lives in, for the 12 months to each month end. A child is counted once if they had at least one course of NHS dental treatment in the period. NHSBSA's methodology note says a patient's age is taken at the end of the period, so a child under five is one aged 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 on 31 March 2026. NHSBSA tells one patient from another by surname, first initial, gender and date of birth, and says duplicates and omissions are unlikely to move overall counts by more than 1 or 2 percent. Its national table also runs to the 12 months to 30 June 2026, where the under-fives figure is 38.3%. This study uses the year to 31 March 2026 throughout.

The population. ONS mid-year population estimates for the same councils and the same five single years of age, from Nomis (dataset NM_2002_1). For the year to March 2026 we use mid-2025, and for the year to March 2024 mid-2023: in each case the estimate dated nine months before the period ends. This is the population NHSBSA itself prints beside its council counts, and the one it uses for England: its national table 4d gives the same England figures as ours for the years to March 2020, 2024 and 2026. All 37,215 council cells where NHSBSA prints a population match the ONS figure exactly. We take the population from ONS directly because NHSBSA leaves the population blank wherever it withholds a count. For NHS regions and integrated care boards NHSBSA prints an older estimate, for mid-2024, because the mid-2025 figures for those areas were not out when it published. We do not use that one for the headline. On it, England's under-fives figure is 37.3%, and 33.2% two years earlier.

England. England's 38.2% is every under-five seen, 1,146,400, over ONS's estimate for England, 3,003,917. 17,529 of those children could not be placed in a council, because their postcode was missing or could not be matched. They are in England's figure but in no council's, so the councils' own counts add up to 37.6%, and that is the figure the dashed line on the council chart shows.

Two councils without a figure. NHSBSA leaves a count blank where it is under five. That happens for at least one age in the City of London (234 under-fives) and the Isles of Scilly (80), so neither has a figure, and the ranks run from 1 to 294. In earlier years one age is blank in three councils that are shown: Brentwood and North Norfolk in the year to March 2024, and Mid Suffolk in the year to March 2020. Their figures for those years leave out at most four children each, about a tenth of a point, and the council file marks them.

No margins of error. These are counts of every NHS claim, not a survey, so NHSBSA gives no intervals and we have not added any. A small council's figure still moves more from year to year than a large one's. The smallest council shown, Rutland, has 1,423 under-fives. The counts of councils in this article, such as how many are at 30% or lower, are made from the one-decimal figures in the council file, so anyone can make them again.

Regions and deprivation. Regions are the nine ONS regions, with councils added up through the ONS council-to-region lookup. Council deprivation is the average score on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025. The neighbourhood figures are NHSBSA's own table of children seen and population by deprivation tenth, which it releases as management information. Its populations are built from ONS small-area estimates for mid-2024, which ONS publishes as supporting data and not as accredited official statistics, and NHSBSA notes that ONS recommends caution with them at single years of age. Those shares add up to 36.7%, a little below the council basis.

Controls we ran. The headline does not depend on the choice of population. On the mid-2024 population NHSBSA prints beside its regional figures, England is 37.3%. On ONS's current estimate for mid-2024 it is 37.5%. Ageing the mid-2025 estimate forward nine months, to the day the children's ages are taken, gives 38.7%. Leaving out the children with no known council gives 37.6%, and leaving out London 39.2%. Every version is below four in ten. Leaving out babies under one gives 46.0%. The two-year rise holds on each population: 4.9 points on ONS's estimates, 4.2 on NHSBSA's regional population, and 4.1 if the number of under-fives is held at its mid-2023 level. Against the year to March 2020 the share is higher on each population as well, but not if the number of under-fives is held at its mid-2019 level, which gives 35.8% against 36.8%. In councils with more under-fives a slightly smaller share is seen (rank correlation -0.16), but that is London: outside it there is no relationship (-0.01).

How this relates to our earlier studies. Our council study of tooth decay in September reported that 47.5% of one to five-year-olds and 40.9% of under-sixes were seen in the same year. Both of those bands include five-year-olds, and the first leaves out babies, which is why they are higher than this study's figure for under-fives. That study also measured England against the mid-2024 population NHSBSA prints for regions, where this one uses ONS's mid-2025 estimate. On this study's population those two figures would be 48.8% and 41.9%, and on that study's population this study's 38.2% would be 37.3%. The same difference in population is why that study gives 58.9% for all children and this one 60.0%. Our constituency study gives 58.0% for all children, because it adds up wards, leaves out children whose ward is not known and uses mid-2024 populations.

What this is not. It is not a measure of private dentistry, which these sources do not count. It is not a count of children who have never been to a dentist, or of children without one: it covers one year of NHS care. It is not a measure of need or of tooth decay. It does not show why a child was not seen. And children are counted where they live, so a council's children may well be seen by practices in the next one.

Questions we get asked about this data

How many under-fives in my council see an NHS dentist?

Search for the council in the chart in section 2, or open the council file. Across 294 councils it ranged from 18.1% to 56.2% in the year to March 2026, with the middle council at 38.5%. England's figure is 38.2%.

Does this mean six in ten under-fives have never been to a dentist?

No. The figure covers one year, counts NHS care only and includes babies. In the year to March 2026, 4.6% of children under one were seen by an NHS dentist, 30.6% of one-year-olds and 58.2% of four-year-olds. A child who was not seen in the year may have been seen privately, or in an earlier year.

Does this count children who see a private dentist?

No. The figures come from NHS claims, so a child seen only privately is not counted. In areas where many families pay privately, the share of small children who saw any dentist will be higher than the share shown here.

When should a child first see a dentist?

The NHS website's page Children's teeth, as at 12 November 2026, says: "Take your child to the dentist when their first milk teeth appear, or before they are 12 months old." In the year to March 2026, 30.6% of children who were one year old at the end of the year had been seen by an NHS dentist during it.

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 council of residence and single year of age, years to March 2020, 2024 and 2026) and ONS mid-year population estimates by single year of age, both under the Open Government Licence v3.0. NHSBSA asks for this line with its data: NHS Dental Statistics for England 2025/26, NHSBSA Copyright 2026.

Please describe the figure as children under five seen by an NHS dentist in the year to March 2026. It counts one year of NHS care. It is not the share of children with a dentist of their own, and the remainder are not children who have never been to one. It includes babies: 4.6% of children under one were seen, 30.6% of one-year-olds and 58.2% of four-year-olds. England's 38.2% is the figure NHSBSA publishes in its national summary tables (table 4d), measured against ONS's mid-2025 population. The council figures are measured the same way. On the mid-2024 population NHSBSA prints for its regions England would be 37.3%.

The council file, under-fives-seen-by-an-nhs-dentist-by-council-2026.csv, has one row per council with its ONS code, region, counts, shares for three years and the share for all children. Figures for all children by constituency are in our constituency study.

The two sentences quoted from the NHS page Children's teeth are unchanged. Information from the NHS website, as at 12 November 2026. Information from the NHS website is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The NHS has not seen or endorsed this 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