London has a higher concentration of NHS dentists than any other English region on paper, yet finding one that will actually take you on is a different story depending entirely on your postcode. The gap between what the workforce statistics show and what patients experience is one of the clearest examples of the access and provision divide this review exists to document.
A Higher Dentist Count, A Lower Chance of Being Seen
As of March 2024, London had 27.6 full-time-equivalent dentists per 100,000 people, above the England average of 26.2. On staffing alone, the capital should be comparatively well served. But only 39% of London adults accessed an NHS dentist in the two years to March 2024, and only 53% of children did so in the year to March 2024 — both below the national figures for the same periods. A House of Commons Library statistician, Dr Sonja Stiebahl, noted in February 2025 that although London has fewer dental vacancies and more dentists per head than most of England, the proportion of people actually seeing one is still not particularly high, which points to something beyond raw workforce numbers driving the shortfall.
The Borough-by-Borough Divide
An April 2025 analysis of 1,140 London practices listed on the NHS "Find a Dentist" service found that 61% were not accepting new adult patients at all. That headline figure hides enormous local variation, from boroughs where most practices are open to new patients to boroughs where almost none are.
| Borough | Share of NHS dentists NOT accepting new adult patients (Apr 2025) |
|---|---|
| Richmond upon Thames | 90% |
| Barking and Dagenham | 80% |
| Tower Hamlets | 80% |
| Havering | 77% |
| Redbridge | 75% |
| Sutton | 75% |
| Lewisham | 32% (London’s lowest) |
For children under 18, 51% of London’s NHS dentists were not accepting new patients as of the same survey. More recent tracking from August 2026 put the citywide adult figure at 508 of 1,039 London NHS dental practices, or 49%, currently accepting new adult patients — an improvement on 2025’s 39%, but still meaning roughly half the capital’s practices are closed to newcomers.
Why Practices Are Turning NHS Patients Away
The British Dental Association’s 2023 survey found that over half of dentists had reduced the amount of NHS work they carry out since the pandemic. By July 2025, the BDA calculated unmet need for NHS dentistry in England at an all-time high of almost 14 million people — more than one in four adults — including 5.7 million who tried and failed to secure NHS care in the previous two years, and 5.9 million who had simply given up trying. The BDA’s explanation is structural rather than a matter of individual practices being unwilling: it describes the current NHS dental contract as severely flawed, arguing that its funding and payment structure actively disincentivises taking on NHS work, particularly for patients with higher treatment needs.
The Cost to Children
The gap is not just an inconvenience for adults chasing check-ups. The London Assembly Health Committee’s January 2025 report, Decay & Delay: The State of Dentistry and Oral Health in London, found that 25.8% of five-year-olds in London had experienced tooth decay in 2021–22, above the 23.7% England average, and that more than 5,000 children aged 0–9 in London were admitted to hospital for tooth extractions in 2022–23. A separate report from January 2025 found that 47.1% of children in London did not access an NHS dentist at all between March 2023 and March 2024. The Health Committee’s report also concluded that dental funding has not kept pace with inflation and that there is not enough commissioned NHS activity to meet the capital’s population needs.
What "Accepting New Patients" Doesn’t Guarantee
Being listed as open to new patients is not the same as being seen quickly. Practices that show as accepting patients "when availability allows" have reportedly built waiting lists running to several years in some parts of London. Part of the confusion is systemic: Healthwatch reported in November 2024 that 68% of people wrongly believe they can permanently register with an NHS dentist in the way they can with a GP, when in practice NHS dental access works appointment by appointment, with no guaranteed ongoing registration. In April 2025, the Public Accounts Committee went further, declaring the government’s plan to widen NHS dental access a complete failure, noting that only 40% of adults had seen an NHS dentist in the two years to March 2024, down from 49% before the pandemic.
Taken together, the workforce numbers, the borough data, and the committee findings describe a system where capacity exists on paper but does not translate evenly into care on the ground — precisely the kind of access and provision gap this review was set up to track across the capital.