Specialist accountancy for associates, practice owners and squat founders in Belfast — from a team that works exclusively with dentists.
The short version. Health service dentistry in Belfast is planned by the Strategic Planning and Performance Group within the Department of Health. Income comes from item-of-service health service payments, handled by Family Practitioner Services at the Business Services Organisation. Practices are inspected by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) and dentists are in the HSC Pension Scheme, administered by HSC Pensions. We work with Belfast dentists remotely, and only with dentists.
Northern Ireland's dental market has its own rules, its own payment system and — for practices with Republic-side patients or suppliers — a border dimension nobody else in the UK has to think about.
Northern Ireland is a genuinely separate system on every axis that touches your accounts: item-of-service payments rather than UDAs, the RQIA rather than the CQC, and the HSC Pension Scheme rather than the NHS Pension Scheme for England and Wales. A practitioner who moves from Belfast to Birmingham, or the reverse, changes all three at once.
Belfast practices also deal with a border that no other UK city has to think about — staff, patients and suppliers on either side of it, and goods VAT under the Windsor Framework working differently from services. We act for Northern Ireland businesses and treat this as ordinary rather than exotic. Rates on your surgery are assessed by Land & Property Services, which runs a rating system of its own rather than the GB business-rates system.
Northern Ireland has no ICBs and no health boards of the GB kind: health-service dentistry is planned by the Strategic Planning and Performance Group within the Department of Health, and practitioner payments are handled by Family Practitioner Services at the Business Services Organisation. Almost nothing written for an English practice describes this system accurately.
Northern Ireland runs on item-of-service health service payments rather than UDAs, with practices regulated by the RQIA. Cross-border realities — staff, patients and suppliers either side of the border, and VAT quirks under the Windsor Framework for goods — add a layer no GB accountant routinely sees. We act for NI businesses and know the terrain.
The Queen's University Belfast School of Dentistry — the only dental school in Northern Ireland — based at the Royal Victoria Hospital is in the city, which means foundation trainees and newly qualified associates locally, and a hospital referral route on the doorstep. Dental Foundation Training in Northern Ireland is run by the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency (NIMDTA) — your first year out is a training placement, not simply a job, and it is taxed and pensioned differently from self-employed associate work that follows it.
"How much is my dental practice worth" has a different answer in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK, because the payment system your income comes from is different — item-of-service health service payments, handled by Family Practitioner Services at the Business Services Organisation. A valuation built on English UDA assumptions will misread a Scottish or Northern Irish practice, and a Welsh one whose activity measures have been rebased by contract reform. Our valuation guide explains how the nation changes the answer.
No, and it is worth being honest about why. Everything runs remotely — video and phone around clinical hours, records and approvals handled securely online — which is how most of our clients prefer it: no afternoons lost to accountant visits. What you gain by widening the search past your postcode is a firm that already knows item-of-service health service payments, the HSC Pension Scheme and the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) without being told.
The Strategic Planning and Performance Group within the Department of Health. Income is earned through item-of-service health service payments, handled by Family Practitioner Services at the Business Services Organisation, and practices are inspected by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA).
More than the address. In Northern Ireland you are in the HSC Pension Scheme, administered by HSC Pensions, you pay UK income tax rates and bands, your practice is inspected by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), and health service income comes from item-of-service health service payments, handled by Family Practitioner Services at the Business Services Organisation. A cross-border move changes the pension scheme, the payment mechanism, the regulator and often the tax arithmetic at the same time, so it is worth a conversation before the start date rather than after it.
No — we work remotely with dentists across Northern Ireland and the whole UK, by video and phone, scheduled around clinical hours, with everything shared securely online. In practice that means faster responses than a local generalist, from a team that only does dentistry.
Yes — pre-offer appraisals, financial due diligence, funding introductions and structure advice, built around how health service dentistry actually works in Northern Ireland. Send us the sales pack before you offer, not after.
Your tax return filed early, a monthly set-aside figure so January is a non-event, your superannuation reconciled against actual pensionable earnings, honest incorporation advice with the HSC Pension Scheme in the picture, and unlimited advice through the year — all for a fixed monthly fee.
A free, no-obligation conversation about your situation. If we can't add value, we'll tell you.
One short email a month: deadlines coming up, rule changes that affect dentists, and one number worth checking in your practice. No spam, unsubscribe any time.