Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the NHS Find a dentist website in relation to information on accepting new NHS patients to remove the selectable option of When availability allows and instead replace it with options of either Yes or No.

National Health Service dentists are required to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days to ensure patients have up-to-date information on where they can access care. This includes information on whether they are accepting new patients. The NHS.UK website was updated in April 2024 to include the ‘when availability allows’ option to reflect that the availability of appointments may change over time, which is more reflective of the way NHS dentists work.

Integrated care boards can review which practices in their area have not updated their profile in a 90-day period, and work with practices to ensure that their websites are up to date.

Patients in England are not registered with an NHS dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend.