On 5 March 2026, the Competition and Markets Authority announced a market study into the supply of private dental services in the UK. It is the first time the regulator has turned its attention to dentistry, and the findings so far paint a clear picture: patients are struggling to understand pricing, compare treatment options, and make informed decisions about their care.
The private dental market is now worth an estimated £8.4 billion, accounting for around 69% of all dental spending in the UK. That figure has grown steadily as NHS dental access has contracted, pushing more patients into private care whether they planned to be there or not. The CMA has reported that the cost of an initial consultation rose by over 23% between 2022 and 2024, while routine check-up prices climbed by more than 14%. For many patients, these increases have arrived without any meaningful improvement in the information available to them.
The Real Problem Isn't the Investigation
The CMA review has alarmed some clinic owners, and understandably so. But the investigation itself is not the threat. What it is doing is shining a light on structural problems that have existed in dentistry for years.
When you book a hotel, you see the price, the reviews, and the photos before you commit. When you need a dentist, you search online, find a handful of websites, call a number, and hope someone tells you roughly what it will cost before you sit in the chair. That experience has not changed in decades, even as patient expectations have shifted dramatically.
The CMA's scope document explicitly identifies limited price transparency, inconsistent information between providers, and difficulty comparing options as core concerns. These are not new problems. They are simply problems that nobody has solved at scale.
Visibility Is Not the Same as Quality
Around 20% of dental clinics dominate local search results. That is not because they provide the best care. It is because they have the largest marketing budgets. SEO agencies, paid advertising, and directory listings all favour practices that can spend the most, not necessarily those that deliver the best outcomes.
This creates a deeply unfair dynamic. A practice that has invested heavily in its team, its technology, and its patient experience may be virtually invisible online simply because it cannot outspend a competitor on Google Ads. Meanwhile, patients have no reliable way to distinguish between a clinic charging more because it offers a genuinely superior clinical environment and one that simply has a nicer waiting room.
The CMA has identified this competition gap as a central theme of its study. In a functioning market, quality should be rewarded. Right now, marketing spend is rewarded instead.
Switching Should Not Be This Difficult
Many patients stay with the same dentist for years, even decades. That continuity has genuine value. But some patients feel trapped. Switching to a new practice can mean re-registration fees, repeat consultations, duplicate X-rays, and effectively starting from scratch.
In large cities, where people move frequently and schedules are unpredictable, patients want to choose a dentist the same way they choose everything else: based on location, quality, price, and availability. A functioning market requires the freedom to switch. Right now, dentistry makes that harder than it needs to be.
The CMA has specifically flagged barriers to switching as an area of concern. Patients who cannot easily move between providers are patients who cannot exert the kind of competitive pressure that keeps prices fair and standards high.
Transparency Protects Good Clinics Too
There is a common assumption that price transparency only benefits patients. That is wrong. The clinics most at risk from this investigation are those that rely on complexity to obscure their pricing, those with hidden fees, vague treatment plans, and costs that only become clear once a patient is already committed.
The practices that have genuinely invested in being better have nothing to fear from transparency. In fact, they stand to gain from it. When patients can see what they are getting for their money, clinics that offer better equipment, more experienced clinicians, and higher clinical standards can finally justify their pricing in a way patients understand.
Platforms like TripAdvisor levelled the playing field for independent hotels that could never compete with the marketing budgets of major chains but could absolutely compete on quality. The boutique hotel on a side street found its audience and could charge what it was worth, because customers could finally see why it was worth it. Dentistry is heading in the same direction.
What OpenWide Is Doing About It
We built OpenWide because we believe patients deserve better tools to make informed decisions about their dental care. The issues the CMA has identified are exactly the problems we set out to solve. Here are the specific steps we are taking.
- 1
Transparent pricing across every practice
We display treatment prices directly on each clinic's profile so patients can compare costs before making contact. No more calling around for quotes. If a practice lists its fees, you see them upfront.
- 2
Verified reviews and real ratings
Every practice on OpenWide shows genuine patient reviews from Google alongside its overall rating. Patients can assess quality based on real experiences rather than marketing copy.
- 3
Like-for-like comparison tools
Our directory lets patients filter and sort by treatment type, price, location, NHS availability, and rating. You can compare practices on the metrics that actually matter to you, side by side.
- 4
Removing the marketing budget advantage
On OpenWide, every practice is listed and searchable regardless of whether it spends money on advertising. Our ranking is based on relevance, reviews, and completeness of information, not on who pays the most.
- 5
Making switching simple
Patients can browse, shortlist, and contact new practices in minutes. No re-registration friction, no blind phone calls. We provide the information needed to make a confident switch.
- 6
Helping clinics showcase what makes them different
Claimed practices can update their profiles with treatment menus, team bios, specialist qualifications, and gallery images. This gives quality-focused clinics a platform to demonstrate their value rather than compete on marketing alone.
- 7
Building a fair marketplace
Our matching tools connect patients with practices based on their actual needs, treatment type, budget, location, and NHS preference, rather than which clinic appeared first in a Google search.
Patients Are Already Behaving Like Consumers
The shift is already happening. Patients increasingly expect the same transparency from their dentist that they get from every other service they use. They want to see prices before they book. They want to read reviews from other patients. They want to compare options without having to make five phone calls.
The CMA investigation is a reflection of this shift, not the cause of it. The regulator is responding to the reality that a £8.4 billion market still operates with less transparency than a restaurant booking.
The tools have not caught up with patient expectations. That is what we are working to change. The practices that embrace transparency will be the ones that thrive, not just through this investigation, but in the years that follow. The ones that resist it will find themselves on the wrong side of both the regulator and the patients they serve.
Find a dentist you can trust
Compare pricing, read verified reviews, and choose a practice that's right for you.