Gone in 48 seconds - the staggering response to NHS dental waiting list opening in Leyland
A Leyland dentist which opened its NHS waiting list this week has revealed the phenomenal response - and asked frustrated people not to abuse staff.
Seventy One Dental in Townsgate announced this week that it would be opening up 500 places on its waiting list, which would open for emails at 1.30pm on Thursday. The list would stay open until full.
Although a waiting list isn’t a confirmed NHS place, a spokesman for Seventy One Dental said: “As places become available, we will contact patients to arrange registration appointments”.
There were reports of people emailing their details at 1.30pm and getting an almost instant response to say the waiting list was already full. The practice has now issued a statement after a thousands of people missed out - and some even vented their frustrations on staff.
A spokesman said: “When our NHS patient waiting list opened on Thursday 18th September at 1:30pm, all 500 places were filled in just 48 seconds. We appreciate that this has caused frustration for many, and we’d like to clarify how this happened.
“At 1:30pm, thousands of people clicked “send” at the same time. Emails do not all arrive instantly in our inbox the second they are sent - they are delivered in rapid batches over the following moments. Even those who set up auto-send were not guaranteed a place, as the volume of emails arriving was sadly far greater than the number of places we could offer. We could only take on 500 patients.
“As soon as the list opened, the numbers jumped dramatically. Our NHS team manually opened and closed the inbox - there was no automated NHS system, just our staff carefully monitoring incoming emails. It was upsetting to see so many messages arrive knowing we couldn’t accept them all.
“We are always open to constructive feedback, but personal attacks on our staff - who are working incredibly hard to support the community - are not acceptable. Our team cares deeply about our patients, and this waiting list was an extra effort to try and help as many local people as possible.
“To highlight the scale of demand, we have informed NHS commissioners of the number of emails we received. We hope this helps demonstrate the urgent need for more NHS dental spaces in our community.
“Finally, we want to thank everyone who showed patience and kindness. Our team worked hard to give as many people as possible access to NHS dentistry, and while we know this has been disappointing for many, we will continue to do our best for the community we serve.”
Demand
Surveys by Healthwatch and the British Dental Association (BDA) in 2022 and 2024 have consistently shown that a large majority of NHS dental practices are not accepting new adult patients. The Office for National Statistics last October revealing that 96.9 per cent of those who do not have a dentist and who tried to access NHS dental care were unsuccessful.
Latest figures suggest that in Preston, the proportion of adults seen by an NHS dentist in the past 24 months is 36.5 per cent. In South Ribble, the figure is just 33 per cent, despite the area being Lancashire’s second-lease deprived, according to the English index of multiple deprivation.
The figures for the proportion of children seen by an NHS dentist in the past 12 months are 52.3 per cent for Preston and 56.3 per cent for South Ribble. Source: NHS Business Services Authority (BSA).