REALITY BITES

Getting an NHS dentist has never been harder, with private procedures often costing thousands. As costs soar, many are now living in pain and with lost teeth

- By Zoë Beaty

Let's be honest, the British have never been known for our gnashers. The perfect smile – bright white, suspiciously straight – has long been an American export, while British teeth have long been the punchline to their jokes. But now, the nation known for smiling through crisis has run into irony - we can no longer afford to.

In 2025, the state of your teeth says more about your class than your accent ever could. Up and down the country, queues snake around the block when a rare NHS practice opens its doors, as they did in Bristol in September, where more than 150 lined up outside from 7am, hoping for a coveted place on a list that closed within hours. It’s not surprising when you consider that, in 2024, fewer than one in five practices in England were accepting new adult NHS patients. Some regions, such as Cornwall and Cumbria, had none at all.

The British Dental Association says that more than 12 million adults haven’t seen a dentist in more than two years; one in five delay treatment because of escalating costs. In some areas, patients are pulling their own teeth out with pliers or turning to YouTube tutorials to fix what they can’t afford.

Horror stories are everywhere. One friend is facing three years of finance to pay for the removal of two teeth, a bone graft needed to hold two implants, which her dentist said would cost almost £9,000. Another witnessed a woman in a pharmacy with a swollen cheek, clearly in pain, unable to afford the £150 fee for an emergency appointment. Frantic, she was explaining that she couldn’t take the painkillers being offered to her due to her ongoing cancer treatment. Go to A&E was the pharmacist’s advice.