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Blogs · July 2026

Do dentists have to tell patients the price before treatment?

Yes. The GDC requires clear information about costs, and patients are entitled to know the price before treatment starts. What nobody has measured is whether practices actually do it.

The short answer: yes. UK dental practices are required by the General Dental Council to give patients clear information about costs, and patients are entitled to know what treatment will cost before it starts and to be told about any changes. That duty is clear and it is published. What is missing is any measurement of whether practices keep to it. The last serious UK look we could find was the Office of Fair Trading, in 2012.

Do dentists have to tell patients the price before treatment?

Yes. The General Dental Council's standard is not ambiguous:

"2.4 You must give patients clear information about costs"

And among the things a patient is entitled to:

"To know how much their treatment will cost before it starts, and to be told about any changes"

Both of those are on the GDC's live standards site today. There is no wriggle room in either of them, and neither depends on the patient thinking to ask.

Are NHS dental bands still used across the UK?

No. Wales abolished the band system on 1 April 2026.

This is the one worth acting on this week, because it will quietly catch a lot of copy. Any material that describes NHS dental charges as "Band 1, Band 2, Band 3" as though it applies across the UK is now wrong in at least one nation.

Worth checking, in your own words, in this order:

  • Your practice website's fees page.
  • Your patient information leaflets and treatment plan templates.
  • Whatever your reception team says on the phone, which is the version most patients actually get.

Has anyone measured whether dental practices actually do this?

No. Nobody has published a measurement of UK dental price transparency. Not the GDC. Not a trade body. The last serious UK look we could find was the Office of Fair Trading, in 2012.

Fourteen years.

To be precise about the claim, because the distinction matters: we are not saying nobody publishes dental fees. Plenty of practices do. We are saying nobody has measured it, which is a different and defensible statement.

Here is the practical consequence, which is the bit that actually matters to you. If nobody has measured it, nobody is measuring you either. Which means the only record of what your practice tells patients about cost is whatever your front desk happened to say, to whoever rang, on the day. That is not a compliance position anyone would choose.

The fix is not complicated: answer the price question the same way every time, from your own fee list, and keep the record of having done it.

Do vets have to publish their prices?

Not currently, and most do not. This matters to you because it is the nearest thing dentistry has to a preview. The Competition and Markets Authority did to veterinary practices what nobody has done to dental ones: it looked, and it counted.

  • Fewer than 40% of veterinary practices publish their prices.
  • Only 29% of clients received written pricing.

Those are the CMA's own findings, not numbers it is quoting from somebody else.

And it is live right now. The CMA published a price transparency update on 18 November 2025 and opened a consultation in July 2026 which closes on 23 September 2026. One remedy on the table is a required written estimate for treatment over £500.

A regulator has decided that publishing prices is a thing worth mandating in an adjacent profession. Dentistry already has the duty. It just has no evidence base.

How much does a care home cost per week in the UK?

Included because it is the same question wearing different clothes, and it shows how differently each sector handles it.

  • About £1,594 a week for the average self-funder, against about £1,225 for local-authority funding. (LaingBuisson, 35th edition, 2025)
  • A separate market view puts the average at about £1,298 a week. (carehome.co.uk, September 2025)

Care home fees are not price-regulated the way dental costs are. The gap is simply large, public, and usually the substance of a family's first call.

What we cut, and why

This list is here because on this subject the bad numbers are more available than the good ones. If a supplier shows you any of the following, ask them who counted, and when.

  • A GDC quote that would have been the best line we had. The page it was supposed to be on returns a rendered shell that does not contain it, and the standards PDF returns a server error. Not used until someone opens the document and sees it.
  • The dental price figures that float around this subject (£55, £80, 23%, 14%). They do sit on a CMA page, which is why they look authoritative, but the CMA's own wording is that "independent sources suggest" them. The CMA is repeating, not producing, and will publish its own in 2027. A figure on a regulator's page is not automatically the regulator's figure.
  • "32% of dental calls are missed." Vendor-laundered. No credible UK dental call answer rate exists.
  • A phone-survey dataset of dental practices (404 practices, quotes ranging £49 to £182). It is the best-fitting evidence in this whole subject and we could not verify it on a live page in time. If we can stand it up, it goes in the next edition.
  • Any US answering-service statistic on missed calls or no-shows. Not UK, not comparable, widely recycled.
  • "Band 1/2/3" framing. Wrong in Wales since 1 April 2026.

What do we actually know about dental access?

Two things worth having, both labelled honestly.

What we can back with a sourceFigureSource, and the caveat
People confident of getting a dental appointment32%General Dental Council, 2024
People who will not leave a voicemail54%Moneypenny/Censuswide, published February 2024. 2,000 UK and US consumers, fieldwork June 2023. Consumer behaviour, not a dental metric.
People who go elsewhere after a poor call experience38%As above, same caveat.

Read them together and the picture is not a marketing problem. The demand is already ringing your phone. It is the answering that leaks.

Can an AI agent answer the price question?

Yes, from your own published fees, consistently, without anyone having to stop what they are doing. Which, given that the only record of what you tell patients about cost is currently whatever reception said that day, is the part worth having.

What it will not do: quote a price that is not in its knowledge base. No inference, no "usually around". If the fee is not there, it says a person will confirm. It does not give clinical advice. If a caller describes something that needs a clinician, it says so and hands to your team.

And one honest warning. If your fees genuinely cannot be written down, do not start. An agent reading a stale fee list will confidently quote a price you no longer charge, and in dentistry that is a complaint with a regulatory duty attached.

Frequently asked questions

Do dentists have to give you a price before treatment?

Yes. GDC standard 2.4 requires clear information about costs, and patients are entitled to know what treatment will cost before it starts and to be told about any changes.

Are NHS dental bands still in use?

Not in Wales, which abolished them on 1 April 2026. Any UK-wide "Band 1/2/3" description is now inaccurate.

What share of dental practices publish their fees?

Nobody has counted. There is no published UK measurement. The last serious UK look we could find was the Office of Fair Trading in 2012. We are not claiming nobody publishes fees, only that nobody has measured it.

Do vets have to publish prices in the UK?

Not currently. The CMA found fewer than 40% do, and only 29% of clients got written pricing. A consultation on changing this closes 23 September 2026.

What is the £500 vet estimate rule?

A remedy proposed by the CMA requiring a written estimate for treatment over £500. It is proposed, not in force.

Sources

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