Britain’s biggest dentistry business is raking in tens of millions of pounds in profit while its NHS work shrinks, a Mirror investigation reveals.
MyDentist, which runs more than 500 practices with over four million patients, has tripled the size of its private practice amid a national crisis over access to NHS dentists.
The Mirror called 100 practices on the MyDentist website listed as “NHS and private” and discounted those it listed as “private only”. But even among those it says are NHS practices, only nine out of 100 were taking on new adult patients.
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Reach Commissioned/Steve Bainbridge)
Many played a waiting message pitching its private treatment, offering “the dental care you’ve always dreamed of”.
The Mirror launched its Dentists for All campaign after funding cuts and a failing NHS payment system decimated access to NHS treatment.
MyDentist denies it has a deliberate strategy to stop taking new NHS patients and told the Mirror it is an individual dentist’s decision how much NHS provision to take on.
Dentists for All campaign
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Our 3 demands
Everyone should have access to an NHS dentist
More than 12 million people were unable to access NHS dental care last year – more than 1 in 4 adults in England. At the same time 90% of dental practices are no longer accepting new NHS adult patients. Data from the House of Commons Library showed 40% of children didn’t have their recommended annual check-up last year.
Restore funding for dental services and recruit more NHS dentists
The UK spends the smallest proportion of its heath budget on dental care of any European nation. Government spending on dental services in England was cut by a quarter in real terms between 2010 and 2020. The number of NHS dentists is down by more than 500 to 24,151 since the pandemic.
Change the contracts
A Parliamentary report by the Health Select Committee has branded the current NHS dentists’ contracts as “not fit for purpose” and described the state of the service as “unacceptable in the 21st century”. The system effectively sets quotas on the maximum number of NHS patients a dentist can see as it caps the number of procedures they can perform each year. Dentists also get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving them out of pocket. The system should be changed so it enables dentists to treat on the basis of patient need.
Have you had to resort to drastic measures because you couldn’t access an NHS dentist? Are you a parent struggling to get an appointment for a child? Email martin.bagot@mirror.co.uk or call 0800 282591
Dentists are mostly self-employed but the firm employs other staff and usually owns the premises.
Cat Hobbs, director of campaign group We Own It, said: “It’s scary to see this rapid downhill trend towards a two-tier system, where those with money get treatment, and those without reach for a pair of pliers.
“Huge private providers are consolidating operations to follow the money, leaving NHS patients in dentistry deserts. People are turning to DIY dentistry solutions and often end up in A&E.”
Dr Tony O’Sullivan, of Keep Our NHS Public, said: “Past government policy has driven dentists into private practice and the arms of cor-porate parasites. Huge dental profits show private healthcare is a one-way street towards a two-tier NHS.”
Accounts for MyDentist’s parent company say that in 2024 its “dentists have continued to allocate more time to private dentistry services” and that for the first time its revenue was “broadly evenly split between NHS and private dentistry”.
Five years ago private dentistry made up 22% of MyDentist revenue.
Last year its outgoing chief exec Tom Riall said: “Our private revenues are growing faster than ever, and a record number of clinicians are choosing to join our practices.”
Mark Jones, of campaign group Toothless in England, said: “The government must act now before we lose NHS dentists for ever.”
In 2024 accounts for parent firm Turnstone Equityco 1 show private dentistry revenue was £271million or 47% of the total revenue of £572m.
In 2019, private dentistry revenue was £104m or 22% of total revenue of £463m. Its private revenue has grown 160% (108% after inflation) while its NHS revenue is down 16% (33% after inflation) over five years.
Our investigation into the firm, owned by private equity investors, found its highest paid director, likely to be chief exec Nilesh Pandya, made £1.2m last year, up from £976,000 in 2023. Three directors shared a £4m bonus in 2022, after a buyout.
Company accounts explained that its “organic growth strategy” involves the “merger, relocation or expansion of smaller practices with limited growth opportunities”.
MyDentist is “by far the largest dental corporate in the UK”, despite closing 73 practices and selling 56 more from 2018 to 2024, reducing the total number of practices it operates from 674 to 534.
MyDentist said that from April to October this year its practices gained 22.5% more new NHS patients than in the same period in 2023.
Mr Pandya said: “We want as many people as possible to access NHS dentistry and we’re proud that more than 200,000 new NHS patients have received an appointment with MyDentist in the last six months.
“There’s still much more to do so that all patients who need it can get NHS treatment. The UK has fewer dentists per capita than almost any other country in Europe.
“Many clinicians have not been able to make the NHS contract work. This sadly often means choosing to do less NHS dentistry.”
He urged the government to reform the NHS contract and improve recruitment efforts.
Labour vowed to renegotiate the NHS contract, which pays dentists the same amount for three fillings as 20 and was branded “not fit for purp-ose” by the Health Select Committee. Eddie Crouch, British Dental Association chair, said: “Thousands of NHS practices are struggling to remain viable. It’s the net result of working to a broken contract.”
The £3billion NHS dentistry budget for England has flatlined for the past decade resulting in a £1bn real terms cut due to inflation.
The BDA estimates it is enough to fund care for half the population.
The last government spent £555m less in real terms on primary care NHS dentistry in 2023/24 than in 2019/20. The Department of Health said: “This government is committed to rebuilding dentistry, but it will take time. We will start with 700,000 extra urgent dentistry appointments and reform the dental contract.”