"NHS dentistry at a tipping point": BBC reveals the extent of access crisis

The British Dental Association (BDA) has pressed the government to step up and deliver urgent reform, as new research from the BBC underlines the scale of the access crisis facing NHS patients across the country.

Between May and July, BBC researchers reached out to every UK dental practice with an NHS contract to ask if they were taking on new patients. Working with the BDA, the BBC identified 8,533 dental practices across the UK that were believed to hold NHS contracts and attempted to call them all. The survey found:

The crisis facing the service across England is being fuelled by a discredited NHS contract, which funds care for barely half the population and puts government targets ahead of patient care. NHS England recently announced modest, marginal changes to this system. However, dentist leaders say that the changes, which come without any new investment, will not address the problems patients face accessing services or keep dentists in the NHS.