4th June 2026
Patients in England set to benefit from the first sustained expansion of dental school places in nearly 20 years.
First sustained expansion of dental school places in nearly 2 decades
Targeted at areas where patients have struggled to access NHS dental care
University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Portsmouth to each receive 25 new dental training places
Patients in so-called ‘dental deserts’ will benefit from the first sustained expansion of dental school places in nearly 20 years, with 50 extra dentists to be trained in the regions that need them most from 2027 onwards.
The Office for Students was asked to allocate new training places, prioritising areas that do not currently train dentists, including rural and coastal communities where accessing an NHS dental appointment has long felt like mission impossible.
UEA and the University of Portsmouth have now been selected to deliver this expansion, bringing dental training to regions where it is needed most and helping to ensure that the next generation of NHS dentists reflect the communities they will serve.
Each university will host 25 dental places each, as part of the government’s drive to train more home-grown dentists and boost the workforce in regions where there are currently too few and patients are left in pain for months on end.
The allocation of these places will mean that all NHS England regions will now have a dental school.
Health Minister, Stephen Kinnock, said:
No one in the 21st century should struggle to access basic dental care or, even worse, be forced to take matters into their own hands.
By bringing dental school places to UEA and the University of Portsmouth for the first time, trainee dentists will put down roots in parts of the country that have for too long been left behind.
These new places will help train NHS-ready dentists in the communities that need them most, meaning patients can get the care they need faster and closer to home.
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, Professor Graham Galbraith CBE, said:
Securing these places is a landmark moment for the University of Portsmouth and the communities we serve. The south-east has needed its own dental school for decades and today that ambition becomes a reality. We are ready to train the next generation of dental professionals right here in Portsmouth - professionals who will stay in the region and help end the dental desert.
UEA’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Maguire, said:
UEA is very pleased to support the initiative to improve dental health, especially for those in the east of England, by training new dentists. We have been working on this for several years and look forward to starting our new course in 2027.
The new places are part of a wider package of measures to rebuild NHS dentistry. The government has also invested in significantly expanding the number of places on professional registration exams for overseas-trained dentists, with up to 2,400 more dentists expected to be able to join the register annually by 2028 to 2029.
The government is also reforming the NHS dental contract itself, to:
reward dentists more fairly
prioritise the highest-need patients
strengthen preventive healthcare
Recent reforms to the contract - an important first step - will create new long-term treatment pathways for patients with significant dental decay or gum disease, with improved payments for dentists alongside requiring practices to deliver a set amount of urgent care and pay dentists more fairly for this work.
Through the 10 Year Health Plan, the government is investing in prevention, improving access to dental care and making it fairer for clinicians and patients. Since coming into office, this government has delivered 1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment - nearly half of which went to children - and is making sure that money ringfenced for NHS dentistry is actually spent on patients, by reducing the NHS dentistry underspend by millions.
Dr Katie Petty-Saphon, Chief Executive of the Dental Schools Council, said:
We recognise the challenges faced by patients in Portsmouth and Norfolk in accessing NHS dental care. The Dental Schools Council welcomes and supports the government’s commitment to expanding dental training places by 50.
The dental school community is already working closely with colleagues establishing new programmes, sharing expertise in estates, admissions and education.
We hope that the new dental school in Norfolk and the new programme in Portsmouth will strengthen regional research capacity and drive innovation in dental education and patient care. Expansion to the highly oversubscribed programme will only succeed with support from partners at both local and national levels, including adequate postgraduate training opportunities and continued investment in the clinical academic workforce.
Tom Whiting, Chief Executive and Registrar at the General Dental Council (GDC), said:
We welcome the expansion of dental school places in England and the support for 2 new dental schools.
We set the standards for training that leads to registration with GDC and quality assure education providers and their programmes against these standards.
We are pleased to have supported the University of Portsmouth and UEA to achieve dental authority status, and we will continue to do so, making sure both programmes deliver high-quality training and that every graduate is ready to practise at graduation.
We know that access to dental care, particularly NHS care, is the biggest concern for patients, and this expansion is a meaningful step in the right direction.
Neil Carmichael, Executive Chair of the Association of Dental Groups (ADG), said:
It is excellent news to see the Department of Health and Social Care moving at pace to action the additional dental school places that were announced in March. ADG has been urging policy makers for some time that filling the gap in the dental workforce is the priority intervention needed to turn dentistry around in the UK.
It is good to see that the allocation of these additional training places will be in regions where patient access to a dentist is particularly difficult. We welcome this smart strategy of focusing on training dentists in specific dental desert areas, such as Portsmouth and East Anglia. This is a practical and targeted approach to tackle the workforce issue where it is most acute.
Dr Charlotte Eckhardt, Dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said:
These 2 new dental schools will help to expand dental training capacity in areas that have historically faced challenges in access to NHS dental care. This is an important step towards increasing the future dental workforce and improving access to care for patients across England.
Scotland
Scotland probably has enough dental training capacity in principle, but it does not have enough capacity to solve the current NHS dentist shortage on its own — and the bigger problem is not just training places, but retention and NHS participation.
Here’s what the evidence shows.
Scotland’s current training capacity
Scotland has three dental schools:
University of Glasgow
University of Dundee
University of Aberdeen
Together they train about 172 new dentists per year (recent intake targets).
That number is broadly stable year-to-year.
So on paper:
Scotland does have a structured, fully functioning dental education system
It already produces a steady pipeline of graduates
Is that “enough”?
This is where it gets complicated.
Scotland’s problem is not that it has zero or very low training capacity — it’s that:
Demand > supply of NHS dentists
Recent workforce and access data shows:
Large numbers of people struggle to access NHS dentists
Significant regional shortages (especially rural and Highlands & Islands)
A declining share of dentists fully committed to NHS work
So even if Scotland trains ~170 dentists a year:
that does not fully replace retirees
it does not cover population demand growth
and it does not account for dentists leaving NHS practice
The key issue: leakage, not just training
A major finding in workforce analysis is that Scotland loses dentists through:
Retirement (often early)
Movement to England or overseas
Shift from NHS → private practice
Reduced NHS hours per dentist
So the system is like a bucket that is:
being filled (training schools)
but also leaking (retention problems)
That is why shortages persist even with stable training numbers.
Why increasing training alone is difficult
Even if Scotland wanted to expand capacity quickly, there are constraints:
Clinical placement limits
Dentistry is not like classroom subjects — students need:
patients
supervised clinical chairs
NHS practice placements
Those are already tight in Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen.
Cost and staffing
Expanding dentistry training is expensive because:
equipment is specialist
staff (consultants, tutors) are in short supply
NHS dentistry itself is under pressure
What experts actually recommend
Most workforce reports and dental bodies broadly agree on this direction:
Some increase in training places (targeted, not massive expansion)
Guaranteed NHS foundation places for graduates
Strong retention incentives
Reform of NHS dental contracts
More use of dental therapists and hygienists
In other words: training is only one lever, not the main fix.
So does closing Edinburgh matter?
Historically, Edinburgh’s old dental hospital model being reorganised did not reduce Scotland’s training capacity, because:
dentistry training continued through Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen
Edinburgh shifted into a different clinical institute model rather than disappearing
So today’s shortage is not mainly because Edinburgh “closed” a dental school — it’s because the whole system is constrained and leaky, not absent.
Scotland
has solid dental training infrastructure
produces a steady flow of graduates
does not retain enough NHS dentists
cannot easily expand training fast enough to solve shortages alone
So the issue is not lack of training capacity — it is workforce retention, NHS working conditions, and limited ability to scale training quickly.
Some History
Edinburgh Dental School
What changed (and why it feels like it “closed”)
The Edinburgh Dental School did exist in the city centre
The University of Edinburgh’s dental teaching centre was historically the Edinburgh Dental School and Hospital, located for much of its life in Chambers Street in central Edinburgh.
It trained dentists for well over a century and was one of the UK’s long-established dental schools.
What changed (and why it feels like it “closed”)
The key issue is that it was not a simple closure. Instead, it was a relocation + restructuring + loss of hospital function over time.
The big turning point: 1948 (NHS era)
The Dental School became part of the University of Edinburgh
The Dental Hospital became part of the NHS hospital system
Teaching and clinical care were tightly linked at Chambers Street
This is when Edinburgh had a fully integrated “teaching hospital dentistry” model.
The move away from a traditional dental hospital model
Over time, the NHS in Scotland shifted dentistry away from standalone dental hospitals toward:
hospital-based specialist units
community dental services
university clinical teaching centres
This meant the old-style “big dental hospital in the city centre” model gradually became less central.
1990s restructuring (the key “closure moment” people refer to)
The Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School was effectively wound down in its traditional form in the 1990s, with services reorganised and redistributed.
This is the point many people refer to when they say it “closed” — even though dentistry teaching itself did not disappear.
The modern replacement: Edinburgh Dental Institute
Today, dental training in Edinburgh is based at the:
Edinburgh Dental Institute (EDI) in Lauriston Place
This is:
still part of the University of Edinburgh
still trains dentists (BDS, postgraduate and specialist training)
but operates as a modern clinical training institute rather than a traditional dental hospital
So the training did not stop — it was reorganised into a more modern structure.
So why does it feel like “closure”?
There are three reasons people often think Edinburgh “lost its dental school”:
The old city-centre dental hospital disappeared
The visible, historic Chambers Street dental hospital is gone as a working hospital.
Services are more dispersed now
Training is now spread across:
Lauriston Place (EDI)
NHS Lothian clinics
specialist hospital units
Shortage pressures today
Because Scotland now has:
fewer NHS dentists
recruitment problems
access difficulties
…it creates the impression of a system in decline, even though the teaching structure still exists.
Edinburgh did not lose dental training
The old Dental Hospital and School model was phased out in the 1990s
It was replaced by the Edinburgh Dental Institute
The change was about reorganisation of NHS dentistry, not elimination of training
Scotland still has a big shortage of dentists and many people struggle to find a dentist in Scotland. People can see a deterioration in things like moving from 6 monthly checkups to annual checkups.