The Competition and Markets Authority has been examining private dentistry since 5 March 2026, and on 17 July it published a 56-page update confirming what the study is actually about. Five themes, one of which goes directly at prices and profitability. A final report is due by the statutory deadline of 4 March 2027.

The update is worth reading in the original, because it is careful in ways the coverage of it was not. Paragraph 6: “This document does not set out any findings or conclusions from our work to date.” Nothing has been decided about anyone’s fees. What has happened is that the CMA has said what it will look at, and when it will say what it thinks.

What a market study is, and what it can end in

A market study examines how a whole market works for consumers. It is not an enforcement action against any individual practice, and nobody is under investigation because of it.

The update sets out three categories of outcome the CMA still expects (paragraph 49): making specific recommendations to government or taking direct CMA action — which it says could include “taking enforcement action if, for example, suspected breaches of consumer or competition law are identified”; informing UK and devolved government policy; and highlighting areas at the periphery of the private market or of the CMA’s remit.

One line in the update went unreported and is the most reassuring thing in it for practice owners. At paragraph 50: “No respondents to the Statement of Scope called for the CMA to make a Market Investigation Reference (MIR) or otherwise commented on this.” A market investigation is the heavier instrument — the one that ends in orders a business must comply with, as it did in the veterinary sector. Nobody has asked for one here. That is not a guarantee about where this lands, but anyone telling you a full investigation is coming is not reading the same document.

The five themes

Confirmed at paragraph 2, after the consultation on the Statement of Scope: consumer journey and choice; competition; conduct; regulatory frameworks; and market outcomes.

The fifth is the one that reaches your accounts. The CMA’s own description of what it is looking at under “Market outcomes” is short enough to quote in full:

“How prices have changed compared to inflation and the relative profitability of service providers and of the different services they provide; and cross-subsidisation to the extent it arises as an issue through our consideration of prices and profitability. We are also considering the extent to which different market dynamics and outcomes (eg price increases and profitability) are correlated with different business models.”

“Different business models” is the phrase to sit with. It is the question of whether corporate groups and independents behave differently on price — the same question that shaped the CMA’s veterinary work.

The regulatory-frameworks theme is the longest section of the update, and much of it is the CMA mapping who regulates what across the four nations — the GDC, the CQC and its equivalents, NHS payment and assurance bodies, the performers lists. That is groundwork, not criticism.

What the CMA says it has heard on prices

The update summarises representations, and is explicit that they are representations rather than findings. They do not agree with each other, which is itself worth knowing (paragraphs 45 to 47):

• A consumer organisation said private dental prices have outgrown inflation over the past two years, with greater price dispersion. A professional association said private dental fees have declined in real terms.
• Dental businesses and professionals attributed increases to cost pressures — rent, clinical materials “particularly following Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic”, laboratory services, equipment, software, energy, staffing and mandatory training — and to the risk those costs pose to practice viability.
• On cross-subsidy, one organisation asked whether private fee increases have been subsidising NHS losses under the current contract structure, or simply reflect demand as NHS availability falls. A professional association said NHS dentistry is cross-subsidised by private income, and some professionals agreed.

Nearly 1,000 dental professionals and over 1,800 consumers responded to the Call for Views (paragraph 4), which for a market this size is a real body of evidence and a reason to take the eventual analysis seriously.

Where the headline price figures actually come from

You will have seen the numbers: initial consultations up over 23% to £80 between 2022 and 2024, routine check-ups for existing patients up over 14% to £55, in a market worth £8.4 billion. They come from the CMA’s launch announcement on 5 March 2026 — but they are not the CMA’s own measurements. The announcement attributes the price figures to MyTribe Insurance and the market size to LaingBuisson.

That matters when the figures are quoted back at you, by a patient or a journalist, as though a regulator had established them. They are third-party estimates that a regulator repeated when opening a study. The CMA’s own view of how prices have moved is precisely what the study has not yet reported.

What the CMA wanted from practices — and what is still open

The update flagged that the CMA wanted to hear directly from independent practices, “given how much of the dental market they represent”, and it ran a questionnaire for independent owners and managers: one response per practice, covering how patients pay, barriers to setting up independently, the NHS/private/cosmetic split and where it is heading, and the price change over two years on two treatments, one of them an average white filling.

That questionnaire opened on 13 July and closed on 14 August 2026. If you missed it, the update gives a standing address for anything relevant to the study: [email protected] (paragraph 52).

Two of those questions deserve scepticism when the analysis eventually appears. The cosmetic/non-cosmetic split is not a clean binary — anterior composites, aesthetic crown work and orthodontic-adjacent treatment sit on a spectrum driven by function and wear as much as appearance — and an “average white filling” spans single and multi-surface, anterior and posterior, easy and difficult isolation. If later conclusions treat either as a hard category, that is the place to push back, and the time to do it is when the emerging thinking is published, not after the final report.

The timetable, and the date that matters

Evidence gathering and analysis continue to September 2026, with the possibility of follow-ups. Then the moment to watch (paragraph 48): between October and November 2026 the CMA expects to publish its emerging thinking — any concerns about how the market is working, and potential options to improve outcomes — and will invite views on it.

That consultation is where a practice’s argument can still change something. The final report follows by 4 March 2027.

Correction, 21 September 2026: our earlier coverage of the July update said the CMA’s questionnaire for independent practices ran from 13 to 31 July 2026, following the update paper’s reference to responses being open “until the end of July”. The CMA’s consultation page records it as opening on 13 July and closing on 14 August 2026; the window was extended after the update paper was written. This piece now carries the correct dates.