For the first time ever, the waiting time for adults fell - by 35 per cent.

But the waiting list for children in NSW, all of whom are eligible for free treatment, rose by 3 per cent. The longest waits are in south-western Sydney, which is up 22 per cent to 1584 children, and western Sydney, up 15 per cent.

More than 27,000 adults and children have been treated in NSW and more than 50,000 in Queensland, where waiting lists for adults have also fallen to record lows.

In addition to these improvements, the waiting lists for eligible adults, most of whom are on some form of means-tested benefit, halved in many areas, including south-western Sydney and Illawarra-Shoalhaven.

Albert Yaacoub, the director of the Oral Health Service in the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, said it was the first time the trend had been reversed in his area.

"What used to happen is that our waiting list used to grow, grow grow," he said. "The adult waiting list was out of control. It was really big and long."

The widespread reductions are attributed to a range of factors, including new federal funding of $111 million to provide additional dental services until March 31, next year.

To clear the backlog, a new triage system was introduced to ensure urgent cases were seen immediately. In Queensland and NSW, some public patients are being given vouchers for treatment by private dentists.

Some experts say the changes are a test run for next year's changes, when the federal government will introduce free universal dental care for all children aged two to 17. The Child Dental Benefits Schedule will cost $2.9 billion over six years and will use a similar mix of vouchers and triage.

While changes introduced this year mean a patient who is in pain or needs urgent care is usually seen within a week and even immediately in some cases, waiting times for routine procedures in the public system are still measured in years, dentists said.

Sally Hone, a Neutral Bay mother who works full-time, said the public dental service had saved her family ''hundreds of dollars'' and few people knew it was free for children. ''But you have to plan ahead if you want to use it for regular check-ups. The last time I tried to book my daughter's check-up, the wait was about a year," she said.

In addition to the new federal funding, Dr Yaacoub's centre benefited from other policies that let him build a clinic with 32 dental chairs and employ six dental graduates.

Because her family could not afford a private dentist, Samantha-Lee Newham, 17, had been seeing a public dentist twice a year. The dentists were too busy to X-ray her two front decaying teeth. Some critics say the focus has been on getting people like Miss Newham off the waiting list, rather than providing total care.

When the Merrylands High School student was given a voucher under the teen dental program to see a private dentist for another procedure, a gaping cavity was spotted and filled. ''To lose my two front teeth would have been horrific,'' she said. ''It's a huge self-confidence issue.''