Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery at NHS Lanarkshire
At 29 weeks, NHS Lanarkshire is among the slower boards for oral & maxillofacial surgery, 2nd longest of 10.
Waits here have been falling, down by around 18 weeks over three years.
489 people are on the list here and 32 were treated in the reporting month, so clearing the current queue alone would take about 18 months.
Privately, removal of teeth including wisdom teeth costs much the same wherever you go in Scotland — £3,264–£3,289 across 3 providers.
NHS Lanarkshire covers Motherwell, Hamilton, East Kilbride, Airdrie, Coatbridge and Cumbernauld and the surrounding area.
Looking for an NHS dentist to register with, rather than hospital treatment? See every NHS dental practice in NHS Lanarkshire — this page is about hospital treatment, which is a different thing.
Looking for a different board or specialty? Use the picker.
Waiting on the NHS
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
NHS Lanarkshire
How long people currently on the list have waited so far. Someone referred last week counts as a one-week wait, so this reads low too — just less so.
29 weeks
Median wait
Half have waited less than this so far — about 7 months.
57 weeks
90th percentile wait
1 in 10 have already waited longer than this — about a year.
Which way it’s going
Median wait has fallen from 47 weeks to 29 weeks over the last 36 months.
This tracks the same measure you have selected above. PHS compute these medians from exact days while the headline figure is derived from wait bands, so the last point sits near but not exactly on it.
The size of the queue
489 people are waiting here, and 32 were treated in the reporting month. At that rate the existing queue alone takes about 18 months to clear.
That’s a floor, not a forecast — it assumes nobody else joins the list, and people join every day.
How does your own wait compare?
A median describes the middle. If you’ve been waiting a long time, it probably describes nothing like your experience.
The whole journey
- GP referral to seeing a specialist
- 16 weeks
- Then being listed to treatment
- 59 weeks
- Roughly, in total
- about 18 months
These two always count people who finished each stage, whichever measure you pick above — a total built from people still queuing would be meaningless, since anyone waiting for treatment finished the first leg long ago. Still two medians from two different groups, so treat it as a rough expectation rather than a prediction. Most waiting time headlines quote only the second figure.
Inpatient and day case figures for June 2026, based on 489 people on the list, published by Public Health Scotland. Derived from banded figures, so they are close estimates rather than exact. Your own wait depends on clinical urgency.
Paying privately
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
Priced as removal of teeth including wisdom teeth
£3,264–£3,289
Typical self-pay price range
Package price: the procedure, hospital stay and standard follow-up. What else is covered varies by provider.
Based on 3 providers in Scotland
- Ross Hall Hospital, Glasgow£3,264
- Kings Park Hospital, Stirling£3,264
- Albyn Hospital, Aberdeen£3,289
Last checked 4 August 2026. Prices are Scotland-wide, not specific to your health board — self-pay patients can be treated at any private hospital. A quote for your own case may fall outside this range.
Median wait: 29 weeks. Typical self-pay cost: £3,264–£3,289.
Paying to find out, rather than paying to fix it
Some people pay privately for a consultation or a scan, then take the results back to the NHS. It costs hundreds rather than thousands, and what it buys is a diagnosis — not a place further up any queue.
Initial consultant appointment
4 providers: Spire Edinburgh Hospitals, Ross Hall Hospital, Albyn Hospital, Kings Park Hospital
£191–£275
Ultrasound scan
1 provider: Nuffield Health Edinburgh Hospital
On the NHS here: 6,155 people waiting, median 33 days, 42% over six weeks.
£330
MRI scan (one area)
2 providers: Nuffield Health Glasgow Hospital, Spire Edinburgh Hospitals
On the NHS here: 1,894 people waiting, median 24 days, 35% over six weeks.
£470–£625
CT scan (one area)
1 provider: Nuffield Health Glasgow Hospital
On the NHS here: 1,542 people waiting, median 10 days, 0% over six weeks.
£650
NHS diagnostic figures are for NHS Lanarkshire as at 2026-03, and count people currently on the list rather than how long completed patients waited. That dataset is published a few months behind the treatment waits above.
A scan does not change your position on the NHS list by itself. What it can do is establish how urgent your case is, and urgency is what determines priority. Whether a private result is accepted, and what happens next, is a matter for your GP and your health board — ask them before spending anything. Scan prices usually exclude the consultant appointment needed to refer you and to interpret the result.