Evidence and sources
Two different kinds of claim appear on this site, and they rest on two different kinds of source. Prices are ours — read from the fee guides practices publish themselves. Anything about how well a treatment works is not ours, and comes from independent peer-reviewed research, cited here so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
London dental prices, August 2026. Compiled by reading 759 London practice websites in full. 228 of them publish prices we can use. From 6,888 price lines we discard “from” prices, ambiguous readings and implausible figures, then take the middle half across practices.
Each of these sits on the guide it informs. All but the NICE guideline are open access under CC BY 4.0, which permits reproduction with attribution; the NICE guideline is cited and linked rather than reproduced, as its terms require.
Dental implants
Across 158,824 implants placed in 53,874 patients, 97.79% were still in place. The failure rate was 2.21%.
Most failures happened in the first year and became rarer after that. Implants carrying a removable denture failed far more often (9.32%) than those carrying a fixed crown or bridge (3.74%), and upper molars and upper front teeth failed at roughly double the rate of other positions.
- Tobias G, Chackartchi T, Haim D, Mann J, Findler M. Dental implant survival rates: comprehensive insights from a large-scale electronic dental registry. Journal of Functional Biomaterials 2025;16(2):60.
Root canal treatment
Of 598 root-treated teeth followed for up to 37 years, 97% were still in the mouth at 10 years, 81% at 20 years and 76% at 30.
Two things measurably changed the odds. Wearing a night guard cut the risk of losing the tooth (odds ratio 0.34), while a cast metal post roughly doubled it (2.14). Deep gum pockets and an existing infection at the root tip before treatment both worsened the outlook — which is why the state of the gum matters as much as the root filling.
- López-Valverde I, Vignoletti F, Vignoletti G, Martin C, Sanz M. Long-term tooth survival and success following primary root canal treatment: a 5- to 37-year retrospective observation. Clinical Oral Investigations 2023;27(6):3233–3244.
Crowns
562 zirconia restorations were followed in a general dental practice for 15 years. By the end, 28.33% had failed.
Roughly one crown in four does not reach fifteen years, which is worth knowing before you treat a crown as permanent. Crowns fitted onto implants ran into more complications than crowns on natural teeth.
- Fifteen-year recall period on zirconia-based single crowns and fixed dental prostheses. A prospective observational study. BDJ Open 2024;10:54.
Clear aligners
Pooling seven randomised trials covering 402 patients found no significant difference in pain between clear aligners and fixed braces, and no difference in quality of life.
Aligners scored better on two specific measures of final tooth position. Treatment time showed no consistent pattern — one trial found Invisalign took significantly longer than braces. The comfort advantage aligners are marketed on did not show up in the pooled results.
- Owayed A, Alshammari DM, Alsaleh SA, et al. The effectiveness of clear aligners versus fixed aligners in malocclusion patients undergoing orthodontic treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Cureus 2025;17(11):e96986.
How often to have a check-up
NICE does not recommend a six-monthly check-up for everyone. It recommends an interval set individually between 3 and 24 months, based on your risk of dental disease.
The 2018 surveillance review found no evidence that a 24-month interval harmed the oral health of low-risk adults. If a practice recalls you every six months as a matter of routine, it is reasonable to ask what your risk assessment was — the answer changes how much you spend over a decade.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Dental checks: intervals between oral health reviews. Clinical guideline CG19, 2004; surveillance review 2018.
Teeth whitening
In-office, at-home and combined whitening all produce real colour change. At-home whitening held its result longest.
High-concentration in-office peroxide was linked to colour returning sooner — within six months — than with a completed at-home course. Combining both approaches offered no additional benefit and may increase sensitivity. A second review found shop-bought products vary enormously by format: concentrated paint-on gels changed colour perceptibly, while mouthrinses barely moved the shade.
- Butera A, Maiorani C, Rederiene G, Checchi S, Nardi GM. Evaluation of the effectiveness of different types of professional tooth whitening: a systematic review. Bioengineering 2024;11(12):1178.
- Boruga M, Tapalaga G, Luca MM, Bumbu BA. Hydrogen peroxide-free colour correctors for tooth whitening in adolescents and young adults: a systematic review. Dentistry Journal 2025;13(8):346.
Fillings
The faster “bulk-fill” technique lasts as well as the slower layered one.
Pooling nine randomised trials covering 632 restorations found no statistically significant difference in failure rates between bulk-fill and incrementally layered composites, over both short and longer follow-up. Marginal adaptation, discolouration and post-operative sensitivity were comparable. The practical difference is chair time, not durability — so a premium charged for either technique should come with an explanation.
- Zailai A, Alharbi ZA, Dowairi F, et al. Clinical performance and survival of bulk-fill resin composites compared to conventional resin composites in posterior permanent teeth: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Cureus 2025;17(12):e99792.
Dentures
Between half and four in five denture wearers report being satisfied — and what you are fitted with changes that more than what you pay.
A review of 35 studies found satisfaction ranging from 50% to 81%. Flexible and thermoplastic resin dentures scored higher than traditional metal ones, and designs bounded by teeth on both sides did better than free-end designs. Pain, appearance and difficulty keeping them clean were the main complaints. People who had worn a denture before were more satisfied than first-time wearers.
- Awawdeh M, Alotaibi MB, Alharbi AH, et al. A systematic review of patient satisfaction with removable partial dentures (RPDs). Cureus 2024;16(1):e51793.
Scale and polish
A routine scale and polish every six months does not keep gums healthier than having one when your dentist judges it necessary.
Scheduled scale and polish did not reduce the early signs of gum disease more than treatment given as needed. It does remove more calculus — six-monthly more than twelve-monthly, on high-certainty evidence — but the clinical importance of that difference is uncertain. Patients did report their teeth felt cleaner. This matters commercially: hygienist appointments are the second most commonly published price in London, on 172 practice websites.
- Lamont T, Worthington HV, Clarkson JE, Beirne PV. Routine scale and polish for periodontal health in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2018, Issue 12, CD004625.pub5.
| Source | What we take from it | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Care Quality Commission register | Which practices exist, where they are, and their registration status. The starting list for everything on this site. | Open Government Licence v3.0 |
| NHS Organisation Data Service — General Dental Practices | Which of our listed practices hold an active NHS General Dental Services contract (shown as the "NHS & Private" badge). Matched by postcode and house number against our own address data — a practice's registered NHS name is often not its trading name, so we don't match on name. A contract is not the same as an open list; we link to our own guide on checking current availability. Downloaded 26 August 2026. | Open Government Licence |
| NHS — Teeth whitening | The clinical baseline for whitening, and the warning that treatment outside a dental setting can harm teeth and gums. Last reviewed 19 August 2025. | Crown copyright — Open Government Licence via NHS syndication |
| NHS Business Services Authority — Dental statistics, England 2024/25 | Official NHS dental activity and counts of patients seen, used for context on NHS access. | Open Government Licence |
| Department of Health and Social Care — NHS dental charges | The Band 1, 2 and 3 charges, which are set nationally and identical everywhere in England. | Open Government Licence |
| General Dental Council register | Who is legally allowed to practise dentistry, including who may carry out tooth whitening. | GDC — searched and linked, not reproduced |
NHS ODS match coverage, 26 August 2026: 1,476 of 2,409 practices confirmed with an active contract, 38 confirmed with a lapsed one, 736 with no match found at their postcode, and 159 we couldn't check because our own address data for that practice is incomplete. We don't guess on the remainder — no match shown means no match confirmed, not "not NHS."
- We do not republish articles we have no licence to. Attribution is not permission. Where a source permits reproduction, we say so and under which licence; where it does not, we cite and link.
- We do not present research as our own. Every finding above is attributed to the people who did the work.
- We do not give clinical advice. Research describes what happened across a population. What applies to your mouth is a question for a GDC-registered dentist.
- We are not paid to cite anything. No researcher, publisher or practice pays to appear on this page.
Our price figures are free to reuse, commercially or not, under CC BY 4.0. Suggested form:
DentistFees. London dental prices, August 2026. https://dentistfees.co.uk/prices/
Where a licence is named above, it is the licence stated by the publisher at the time we read the work. Licences and guideline terms change — the links go to the current version. If you believe a source is misattributed or a licence has changed, email corrections@dentistfees.co.uk and we will fix it.