Dental Care
Finding an NHS dentist can sometimes be challenging, especially with growing demand for both routine and urgent dental care. This page provides clear information on how NHS dental care access works, what do if you need urgent care, and where to find a dentist accepting new patients.
We are aware and understand the difficulty people are having trying to see an NHS dentist for routine and urgent care. There is a lot of work being undertaken to improve this national situation, which includes training and recruiting more dentists.
Primary care dental services returned to usual contractual arrangements from 1 July 2022 which enabled more routine patients to be seen following the covid pandemic.
Patients can approach any NHS dental practice and request care; however, it is important to note that many NHS dental practices now have a waiting list of patients who require dental care.
You can search for an NHS dentist near you on the NHS site.
NHS dental practices have been asked to maintain a short notice cancellation list and contact patients if capacity becomes available within their appointment books and so maintaining regular contact with local NHS dental practices will facilitate those practices to utilise their surgery capacity to the maximum. In addition, NHS dental practices have been asked to regularly update their NHS UK website profiles to ensure that it accurately reflects their capacity to see patients, this is not a contractual requirement and each dental practices capacity can change daily.
Automatic registration with an NHS dentist has not existed since 2006. You may be able to access dental services, not only within BLMK ICB, but bordering ICBs such as Northamptonshire or Herts West Essex ICBs which may assist you with NHS dental access. Many practices have maintained a list of NHS patients they offer to recall but no registration or maintaining an NHS patient list is an actual requirement of an NHS dentist.
If you are experiencing pain or bleeding, please contact NHS 111, who will be able to direct you to a dentist who does have capacity to see patients who need urgent care.
If after contacting several dental surgeries you still cannot find a dentist accepting NHS patients, call NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre on 0300 311 2233.
