When she moved to east Devon in 2018, however, Colla was unable to join any dental surgeries – being told that they either weren’t taking NHS patients or they didn’t have capacity to take on new ones.
This figure includes 5.6 million people who have tried and failed to get an appointment in the last two years, and 5.4 million who did not even attempt to secure an appointment because they thought they would not get one.
Several of the practices that were listed on the NHS website as “accepting new patients when availability allows” were, in fact, not accepting new patients, with 86 of the 100 practices called by the BDA and the Daily Mirror turning away applicants.
Last year, BDA warned people against scammers who “prey” on people desperate to secure an NHS dentist appointment.
Seven years to visit the dentist was simply too long to wait for Linda Colla, who was forced to pull out her own teeth due to the pain.
