How we know

Practices and listings

We start from every dental listing on Google Maps in the UK, collected on 11 September 2026 (Sep 2026), and merge listings that share a phone number, house number and postcode into one practice. Listings that are not practices a patient can choose (suppliers, laboratories, training providers, lead-generation listings, a dentist's own listing beside the practice they work at) are left out. We read every name in a city without a dental word before it goes live.

NHS contracts

From the NHS Business Services Authority's English contractor monthly general dental activity data for June 2026. A practice shows "an NHS dental contract is registered at this practice's postcode" when the contract's premises postcode is the practice's postcode and either the names match or it is the only practice we list at that postcode. Patient counts are the NHSBSA's: adults seen in the previous 24 months and children seen in the previous 12 months under that contract. We never say whether a practice is accepting new NHS patients: only the practice knows that today.

CQC registration

From the Care Quality Commission's care directory of active locations (1 October 2026), dental services only. We link a practice to a CQC location when they share a phone number and postcode, a website and postcode district, or a postcode and a distinctive word of their names. The date shown is the location's registration date in that file.

Reviews

Counts come from the written public reviews on each practice's listings up to 11 September 2026. Ratings are shown as floors ("4.5+ stars in 100+ reviews"), not exact scores. "One- and two-star share" is counted only for practices with 20 or more written reviews; city medians use the same rule. We don't publish quotes from reviews.

What patients mention

We first read every review of 51 practices chosen across types, chains, ratings and the four nations, and listed every distinct thing patients describe. Each theme then gets a precise search pattern that is run over all 1.9 million written UK reviews. Because a pattern also catches look-alikes ("can't wait to go back" is not a long wait), an AI reader judges a sample of 30 matches per theme; a theme is shown only when at least 90% of its sampled matches are really about it, and counts are the matches multiplied by that rate, so they are estimates ("about 23"). Themes that are mostly complaints appear under "What unhappy patients say" instead. We checked the AI reader against a second model on 370 judgments; they agreed on 90%.

What unhappy patients say

Every one- and two-star written review since October 2023 of each practice is read in full by an AI model against one fixed list of reasons (charged more than told, pushed from NHS to private care, long waits, work that failed, and so on), so the counts can be compared between practices. Reviews about a different practice, or with no real complaint, are left out. The reader must copy the exact words that show each reason; we check those words against the review and drop any reason whose words don't match. We show the counts, not the quotes. A practice needs at least three such reviews, and a reason at least two, before it appears.

Opening hours

From each practice's listing. Hours that look wrong for a dental practice (open past 9pm, a day longer than 13 hours, "24 hours") are shown with a caution and never used to say a practice opens late or at weekends.

Who appears on each list

• NHS dentists: an NHS general dental contract is registered at the practice's postcode (NHSBSA, June 2026), matched as described above.
• Children's dentists: children were seen under the practice's NHS contract in the 12 months to June 2026, or the practice lists itself as a paediatric dentist.
• Dentists open at weekends: the practice's listing shows Saturday or Sunday hours, and the hours pass the checks above.
• Emergency dentists: the practice lists itself as an emergency dental service.
• Orthodontists: the practice lists itself as an orthodontist, or holds an NHS orthodontic contract.

Reviews never put a practice on a list. A list page is published only when at least five practices qualify.

What we don't show

Whether a practice is taking new patients (NHS or private), and anything we can't trace to a record.