From what i understand there's plenty of dentists, but they are all private. The government doesn't maintain dentists as part of the NHS, in effect they subcontract the work out to private dentists.

We do get subsidised dentil treatment, but it's limited in scope, and the way the government has handed out the contracts means there's not enough spaces to go around.

I live in a city, and it took almost 18 months for me to get accepted as an NHS patient...in the next city over! But I was offered private treatment instantly at dentists surgeries that had "no space". The system is a fucking joke.

Yes and no. Virtually all dentists surgeries are run by self-employed dentists. At one time most would have mainly provided treatment that is subsidised by the NHS and also provided an amount of private patient treatment. These subsidies have not been increased over time making provision of NHS dentistry a loss. The dentists have dropped out of the NHS funded scheme to focus on private work.

Consequently, the cost of, private, dental treatment is now prohibitively expensive.

This has been going on for decades and we are starting to see it in the general NHS medical care. The conservertives hate the NHS and they want to get rid of it and introduce a privatised health care system, all to make money.

This picture sums up the conservertives.

Here's a summary insight.