DentistAlert monitors every NHS dental practice in England and alerts you when one near you starts accepting new patients.
Getting an NHS dentist in England has become nearly impossible for millions of people. These are not just statistics. They represent real families, real parents, real children who cannot get the care they need.
12m+
Adults without a dentist
Over 12 million adults in England do not have access to an NHS dentist. Many have been on waiting lists for years with no end in sight.
Source: Healthwatch England →
9 in 10
Practices not accepting
Around 90% of NHS dental practices across England are not currently accepting new adult patients. The odds are stacked against you before you even pick up the phone.
Source: House of Commons Library →
Hours
Before spots are gone
When a practice does open its books, spots fill within hours. By the time most people hear about it, the opportunity has already passed.
Source: British Dental Association →
Behind every one of these numbers is a real person. A mum ringing 30 practices in a single morning trying to get her child an appointment. A pensioner putting off treatment because there is simply nowhere to go. A young person in pain who ends up in A&E because they cannot find a dentist willing to see them.
This is the reality of NHS dentistry in England, and it has been getting worse for years.
DentistAlert was built because our founder lived through the same frustration that millions of people across England deal with every single day.
Months spent trying to find an NHS dentist. Calling practices, checking the NHS website over and over, asking friends and family if they knew anywhere taking on new patients. Every time a practice looked like it might have a spot, it was gone before the phone was even answered. It felt like trying to win a raffle that nobody told you was happening.
The data was out there. The NHS publishes information about which practices are accepting patients. But nobody was watching it properly, and nobody was telling people when things changed. That felt like a problem worth solving.
So DentistAlert was born. A system that monitors every NHS dental practice in England and sends you an alert when availability changes near your postcode. No more refreshing websites. No more calling round. Just a straight notification when it matters.
We are not dentists or healthcare professionals. We are people who got fed up with a broken system and decided to do something about it. We believe that finding an NHS dentist should not require luck, persistence, or knowing the right people. It should just work.
We got tired of missing out on dentist spots that had gone before we even knew they existed. So we built something to make sure nobody else has to go through that.
The DentistAlert Team
We use the official NHS Service Search API for practice details — names, addresses, phone numbers, and opening hours. For accepting status we check the NHS.uk find-a-dentist website directly: every practice in England every week, and every night in areas we monitor for members.
NHS listings can lag behind reality, so we blend in community reports — one tap on a practice page or in an alert email records what a real caller heard on the phone. Every check is compared against what we had before, and anything that changed gets flagged.
If a practice near your saved postcode opens up, paid members get an email by ~8:30am with the name, address, phone number, and exactly what they are accepting — free users get a weekly digest. You contact the practice directly to register. Simple as that.
Our data blends three sources: official NHS records, our own checks of the NHS.uk find-a-dentist website, and reports from real people who call practices. Every practice page shows when its status was last checked and how reliable we think it is — read exactly how this works on our mission page.
We believe everyone in England deserves to find an NHS dentist without spending weeks calling round practices or refreshing websites. DentistAlert exists to close the gap between availability and awareness, so that when a dentist near you opens up, you are the first to know about it.
Nobody should have to choose between going private and going without. There is an NHS out there. It just needs someone watching it properly.
Every piece of information on DentistAlert comes from the NHS Service Search API. This is the same system that powers the NHS website. We do not collect, alter, or make up any information about dental practices.
DentistAlert is registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office for data protection. We take our responsibility to look after your personal information seriously and comply fully with UK GDPR.
There is no black box here. We pull data from the NHS, compare it against what we had previously, and send you an alert if something changed near your postcode. That is the whole service, explained in one sentence.
We only store your email address and postcode. Payments go through Stripe and we never see your card details. We will never sell your data. Full stop. Read our privacy policy.
Got a question about the service? Feedback on how we could do things better? Or you just want to say hello? We would genuinely love to hear from you.
hello@dentistalert.co.ukFree to sign up. No card required. Cancel anytime.