How should a dental practice handle urgent calls? A guide for NHS and mixed practices.

From 1 April 2026, NHS England pays £75 for each urgent course of NHS dental treatment, replacing 1.2 UDAs, and NHS general dental contracts of 100 UDAs or more, with some exclusions, must deliver a set number of urgent courses each year.^{1Note 1: general information and sources} Judging how urgent a call is stays with the practice’s trained clinical team, under its own protocol. Reception answers, captures the details, passes the call on and records what happened.

This guide covers NHS dentistry in England.

What changed for NHS urgent dental care on 1 April 2026?

NHS England’s contractual guidance gives each mandatory services contract of 100 UDAs or more, with some exclusions, a “Required Number of Urgent Treatments”: 8.2% of its relevant contract value, which “equates to 11 Urgent Courses of Treatment for every £10,000”.

The payment replacing 1.2 UDAs depends on whether the requirement applies:^{2Note 2: source of the payment figures}

• With a requirement: a £15 fixed credit for each required course and a £60 activity credit for each course delivered up to the required number. Each course above it is credited at £75.
• Without one: £75 for each urgent course delivered.

If a practice delivers less than 96% of its required number by year end, the contractual guidance says the activity payment for the undelivered courses is recovered and a breach notice may be issued; the fixed credits are not recovered. The payment figures are also on our facts page.

What counts as an urgent course of treatment?

The guidance’s defined terms call it “a Band 1 urgent course of treatment for the provision of Urgent Care”, meaning “emergency, urgent and non-urgent unscheduled dental need requiring clinical care within 60 minutes, 24 hours or 7 days respectively, unless the condition worsens”. Each is claimed on a Band 1 urgent FP17 within two months of completion.

Any caller can count. NHS England’s January 2026 letter says urgent patients count “irrespective of whether or not they have been to that practice before”, and the guidance says patients “must not be denied access to an available Urgent Care appointment because they do not have an NHS number, GP registration or current permanent address”.

Phone advice alone does not count. NHS England’s clinical guidance says remote self-management advice given during triage “does not count as an unscheduled dental care appointment”.

For a patient who pays NHS charges, urgent treatment costs £27.90.^{3Note 3: source of the patient charge}

Why do urgent calls cluster when the lines open?

A problem that starts in the evening, overnight or at the weekend reaches the practice when it next opens, and where urgent appointments are offered from opening time, patients ring then, on the same lines as routine bookings. We know of no national figures for dental call times. In general practice, 25.0% of calls arrived between 8am and 10am on working weekdays in August 2026.^{4Note 4: source of the GP figure}

The contract makes answering them matter: under the service requirements, a practice with a required number “must make use of all available capacity to provide urgent treatment to patients who either make direct contact with the practice, or who are referred or signposted to it by helpline services”. The same queue loses routine bookings too: see the true cost of a missed call in a dental practice.

Who should triage urgent calls on the phone?

A trained member of the clinical team, under the practice’s own protocol. The clinical guidance says “Oral and dental healthcare professionals must ensure teams have the appropriate clinical triage training, experience and skill mix to triage patients effectively”, with recognised algorithms such as the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme’s to support them.

The protocol should name who triages in each session, how quickly reception passes an urgent call on, and what reception does at once when a caller describes something the NHS website tells patients to take to A&E or 999, such as heavy bleeding from the mouth that will not stop. Reception should not give clinical advice or tell a caller their problem can wait.

What should reception capture on an urgent call?

• The caller’s name, date of birth and a number they will answer for a call back.
• Whether they are a patient of the practice, for the notes, never as a reason to turn them away from an available NHS urgent appointment.
• In a mixed practice, whether they want an NHS or a private appointment.
• The problem in the caller’s own words, when it started, and whether NHS 111 or another service sent them.
• Any communication or access needs.
• The time of the call, who it was passed to and when, and the outcome.

Where should a patient go if the practice cannot see them?

The NHS website tells patients they can “get advice from NHS 111 or contact a dentist and ask for an appointment”, by calling 111 or online. It says they should be offered urgent treatment within 24 hours or 7 days depending on their symptoms, or emergency care within one hour, or as soon as possible, for a knocked-out adult tooth. Meanwhile a pharmacist can advise on painkillers.

The practice’s own information should match. The GDC’s Standards for the Dental Team say “You must provide patients with clear information about your arrangements for emergency care including the out of hours arrangements” (2.3.9). The contractual guidance requires a practice with a required number to show how to access urgent appointments in its patient information leaflet and, where applicable, its website, and to keep its Directory of Services profile up to date. The out-of-hours phone message should say the same.

What records should the practice keep of urgent calls?

The GDC standards say “You must make and keep contemporaneous, complete and accurate patient records” (4.1), and that you should “record as much detail as possible about the discussions you have with your patients” (4.1.2).

A log of urgent calls, with the time, the outcome and whether NHS 111 sent the caller, shows the practice its own demand, and commissioners consider “demand versus utilisation data” and NHS 111 data before reducing a requirement. Recordings and transcripts that reveal something about a caller’s health are special category data under UK GDPR.