The British Dental Association (BDA) has urged the government to step up as Leigh, a town in Greater Manchester, joined the growing list of communities where struggling patients have queued from the break of dawn to secure access to NHS dentistry.

Daily queues starting as early as 4 am have been reported outside the Avenue Dental Centre in Leigh town centre, which offers appointments to all NHS patients on a first-come-first-serve basis.

This follows reports from Faversham, Kent, last month, where a practice received 27,000 calls for just 60 NHS slots, and in Kings Lynn, which in May saw queues of more than 300 also form from 4 am.

Leah Price, who requires regular dental treatment as a result of Chron's Disease, photographed the scenes. She told local media, “the people working in the NHS are trying their hardest.

"But in this country, people should not be camping outside a dentist at 4 am on camp chairs just to get on the NHS patient list, it’s wrong.

"Dental treatment is just as important at the end of the day as other health issues, and I’m just in disbelief that this is where we are at.

"I wasn’t expecting to be added to waiting lists that are two years long and to be within a chance of being seen, I need to camp outside.

"I also have a child that I have to take to school, so waiting outside for hours isn’t an option for me, it’s a mess."

A Health and Social Care Committee inquiry described the state of the service as “totally unacceptable in the 21st century”, setting out fundamental changes centred on reform of the dysfunctional NHS contract dentists work to. The BDA has urged the government to sign up to this reform plan, which it has characterised as an “instruction manual” to save NHS dentistry.

Analysis undertaken by the BDA of recent government data indicates the unmet need for dentistry in 2023 stands at over 12m people, up a million on 2022 figures, and now well over one in four of England's adult population. Over six million adults tried and failed to get an appointment in the past two years, and 4.4m simply did not try because they thought they could not secure one. Those put off by cost are now equivalent to over 1.1m adults, and those on waiting lists are estimated at around 600,000.

Figures are now nearly three times pre-pandemic totals. In 2019, unmet need sat at over four million people, or nearly one in ten adults.

Eddie Crouch, BDA chair said, “These scenes have no place in wealthy 21st century nation, but risk becoming the new normal for millions of patients.

“The Conservative Party will gather in Greater Manchester in little under a month. Ministers need to come armed with solutions to this crisis, or NHS dentistry won’t have a future.”

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