Filling their boots

Dental giant earns millions as surgeries abandon NHS

- NICK SOMMERLAD

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.

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 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 twotier system, where those with money get treatment, and those without reach for a pair of pliers.