No dentists in Leeds are taking new adult NHS patients, new report reveals

Research by the BBC found that no dental practices in the city are currently accepting new adult NHS patients.

Conducting extensive research UK-wide, the broadcaster found that 98 per cent of dentists in Yorkshire and the Humber are unable to take any adult NHS patients.

And in Leeds, they were unable to find a single dental practice that was taking new NHS patients.

Jon Scully, 42, has been on a waiting list for several Leeds dental practices for over a year, and has now resorted to going private for his dental care.

He said: “I broke a tooth a year and a half ago and I did try and get it repaired on the NHS. I registered for a few dentists and I can’t see that I’m going to be accepted any time soon, if at all.

“This tooth cost me about £200 to have it rebuilt [privately] - it wasn’t even extensive, it was pretty basic work. I’ve been going to the same dentist ever since and I had a check-up last week and that cost me £50.

"Although it’s expensive and I’d rather not pay it, I just don’t see any other option.”

The investigation found that in the UK overall, nine out of 10 dentists were not accepting any new patients, and eight in 10 were not taking on children.

The problem is at its worst in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West, where only two per cent of practices were accepting new adult NHS patients.

The BBC also found that most practices in Yorkshire did not even have waiting lists, and those that did they were unable to say how long the waiting list was.

A spokesperson for dental care provider MyDentist, which has several surgeries in Leeds, said: “There is an acute shortage of NHS dentists across the UK. Since the pandemic more than 3,000 clinicians nationwide have stopped practising NHS dentistry and 73 per cent are considering doing the same in the years ahead.

"We are doing everything possible to recruit new NHS clinicians to join our practice teams but, in common with other dental providers across the country, some of our practices are struggling to meet high patient demand for NHS treatment.”

Access to dental care under the NHS is best in London, where almost a quarter of dentistry practices were taking on new adult patients.

Across the rest of the UK, nearly 200 practices said they would only take on a child NHS patient if a parent signed up for private care.

This is despite the fact that children in full-time education are entitled to completely free dental care on the NHS.

Wales, England and Northern Ireland all have broadly similar rates of access to dental care –between seven and ten per cent.

Scotland has significantly better access to NHS dentistry for adults, with around 18 per cent of practices taking on new health-service patients.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Improving patient access to NHS dental care is a government priority and the new reforms to the dental contract announced last month are an important step, allowing the best performing practices to see more patients, making better use of the range of professionals working in the sector such as dental therapists, hygienists and nurses, while also rewarding dentists more fairly for providing more complex care.

“The NHS commits around £3bn to dentistry each year and have made an extra £50m to help bust the Covid backlogs, building on the unprecedented £1.7bn support we provided during the pandemic, to protect teams and patients by paying dental practices for the work they would normally have carried out if it were not for Covid regulations.”

The spokesperson noted that unlike GP patients, dental patients are not registered to a particular practice.

There are no geographical restrictions on which dental practice a patient may attend, allowing them the choice of where they receive treatment.