The CMA has dentistry in its sights. Here is where things actually stand.

By Andy Sloan

15 September 2026 · 4 min read

The Competition and Markets Authority launched its market study into private dentistry on 5 March 2026. Six months in, the picture is clearer than most people in the sector have acknowledged.

Evidence gathering closes this week. The CMA's emerging thinking lands in October. The final report is due by 4 March 2027. For anyone waiting to see how this plays out before doing anything, the window to influence the direction of the remedies has largely closed.

Here is what I think we actually know at this point, and what I think is still misread.

The interim report said something people missed

The CMA published an update on 17 July 2026. Read the document, not the headline summary.

The CMA has heard, including from the BDA, that private dentistry is competitive and well-functioning. That is not the narrative that launched this investigation. The BDA's own evidence submission shows private fees have fallen roughly 8% in real terms over the relevant period, which directly contradicts the framing in Rachel Reeves' original letter.

Regulatory complexity is a bigger theme than most people expected. The CMA has flagged overlapping, multi-body compliance requirements as a burden on practitioners. If the October consultation produces a recommendation to simplify the regulatory framework, that is good for the sector.

Transparency, payment plans and pricing visibility are where the remedies will concentrate. That is where the CMA expects change and where the vet precedent is most directly applicable.

The vet precedent is not a warning. It is a forecast.

The CMA published its final report on veterinary services on 24 March 2026. The remedies: mandatory price lists, written estimates above a cost threshold, itemised billing, ownership disclosure on signage and online, a prescription fee cap, a price comparison website, and a recommendation for the first new Veterinary Surgeons Act in sixty years, specifically to bring businesses, not just individual practitioners, under regulatory oversight.

Dentistry has the same structural gap. The GDC regulates individual dental professionals. It has no direct remit over the business entity that employs them, sets their commercial targets or determines their fee structure. The CMA found this gap in veterinary. It will find it again in dental. When it does, the recommendation will shape policy for years regardless of whether government acts quickly.

For independent practices, this is useful context. You are the business. When business-level regulation arrives, you have far less to restructure than a corporate group with a holding company, a management fee layer, and clinical incentive targets set several steps removed from the chair.

The statutory investigation is not a survey

The CMA has issued formal notices under section 174 of the Enterprise Act 2002 to over twenty dental groups, including the largest operators. Non-compliance carries fines of up to 1% of global annual turnover, plus daily penalties. This is a compulsory information-gathering exercise. The CMA has the power to compel document production.

That matters for any board considering a wait-and-see posture. The information gathering has already happened. The CMA has the data. The October consultation on emerging thinking will reflect it.

Two things happening at once

The Health Bill, introduced in May 2026, would abolish NHS England and transfer commissioning of primary dental services directly to Integrated Care Boards. Mixed practices will find themselves with a restructured NHS commissioning relationship and a CMA investigation resolution arriving at the same time.

This is not incidental. The government is using both mechanisms simultaneously: structural reform on the NHS side, competition and consumer law on the private side. For practices with both NHS and private activity, governance needs to be strong across both.

What I will be covering at Agilio Live

I am presenting at Agilio Live on 25 September. The session focuses on what the CMA investigation means for independent practices and small groups, an audience that has largely been told this story is about corporate consolidators and PE-backed platforms.

It is not only that story. The CMA's five areas of scrutiny, including pricing visibility, treatment option disclosure, complaint accessibility, payment plan transparency and local competition, apply to every private dental practice in the UK. The practices that are well-run and well-governed, with clear pricing, auditable compliance records and clean patient communications, are already largely where the CMA wants the market to be. The session is about making sure they know it, and using the next six months before the final report to turn that advantage into something visible to patients before everyone else is forced to catch up.

If you are attending Agilio Live and want to talk through what this means for your practice or group, I will be around on the day.

Next read: The three prices of a dental business →