Rise in number of unhappy dentists planning to leave the NHS

The sixth Confidence Monitor survey by Practice Plan has found that 86 per cent of NHS dentists don’t see themselves in the NHS by 2023, compared to 70 per cent who answered the same question in last year’s survey.

Of those who intend to leave the NHS, 48 per cent said they were planning to move to private dentistry, 28 per cent are looking to retire and 24 per cent want to change profession entirely.

A deeper look into the results reveals some possible reasons for these figures. Once again, the survey showed that the majority of those working in the NHS are unhappy about seven aspects of their working life they were asked about.

For example, 91 per cent didn’t feel as if they had enough time to manage patient expectations, 94 per cent didn’t feel fairly remunerated for their work and 91 per cent didn’t feel able to carry out their work without feeling overly stressed.