Nine in ten NHS dental practices across the UK are not accepting new adult patients for treatment. In a third of 200 council areas, no dentists were taking on adult NHS patients and eight in ten NHS practices were not taking on children. The Department of Health said it had made an extra £50m available ‘to help bust the Covid backlogs’ and that improving NHS access was a priority. While NHS dental treatment is not free for most adults, it is subsidised. There are people across the UK who canot afford private fees, and the subsidised rates are crucial to getting care. The lack of NHS appointments means people drive hundreds of miles in search of treatment, pull out their own teeth, resort to making their own improvised dentures. and restrict their long-term diets to little more than soup.