You have advertised the role for months. You have tried the agencies. You have covered with locums at rates that make the contract barely worth running. If recruiting a dentist feels impossible, it is not your practice. It is the market, and the way most practices try to hire into it.
The pool you are fishing in is shrinking
Over a fifth of NHS dentist posts are vacant nationally, and around 3,000 dentists have moved away from NHS work since 2020. When you advertise, you are competing for the small number of dentists who happen to be actively looking in your area, against every other practice doing the same. No job advert fixes a supply problem.
Bidding wars do not scale
The instinctive response is to pay more. But overpaying for one dentist erodes your margin and does nothing the next time a chair opens. Locums are the same trap at a higher day rate: continuity is zero and the gap returns the moment they leave.
The fix is the source, not the advert
The practices that fill roles others cannot have stopped fishing in the actively-looking pool and started drawing from a built pipeline, including overseas dentists taken through registration and visas. That is infrastructure, and it is the one thing a job advert can never replicate.
What actually works
Dentello supplies dentists from a proprietary network of more than 10,000, taking overseas dentists through GDC registration, visas and NHS numbers and placing them into your practice fully managed. Every placement is backed by a replacement guarantee, so a departure does not put you back to square one. There is no upfront fee, and the model is matched to your country.
It is how a closed clinic in Peterhead reopened with eight placed dentists and a validated 151% rise in patient access. Talk to the team about your vacancy.
Frequently asked questions
Because the shortage is structural, not local. Over a fifth of NHS dentist posts are vacant nationally, so advertising into the same shrinking pool as everyone else rarely works. The practices that succeed change how they source, not how loudly they advertise.
Locums fill a gap but at a premium day rate and with no continuity, so the cost is high and the problem returns the moment they leave. A managed permanent placement with replacement cover is more sustainable.
We source from a proprietary network of more than 10,000 dentists, including overseas dentists we take through registration and visas, rather than competing for the handful actively job-hunting in your area.