PLANS to increase the number of overseas dentists working in Britain will be “incremental at best,” the Toothless in England campaign group warned today.

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced a rise in the numbers who can take the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) exam, a test that overseas-trained dentists can take to work in the country.

There is currently a backlog of thousands of dentists waiting to take exams with reports of fully qualified practitioners working in fast food restaurants while they wait.

The General Dental Council’s clinical part of its Overseas Registration Exam will also increase, which the department estimates will lead to more than 1,000 more dentists on the register by 2028/29.

Toothless in England said that the plans are “a necessary step to address workforce shortages, but it is incremental at best and will take years to deliver meaningful change on the ground.”

The group’s founder Mark Jones added that government vows to “fix the dental crisis by the end of this parliament [are] to say that patients should ‘put up or shut up’ and suffer.

“It is to say to everyone that we’ll fix things in our own time and not recognise the consequences of their intransigence.”

British Dental Association chairman Eddie Crouch said: “This seismic change to the dental workforce feels like a quick fix.

“More new dentists will come through this pipeline than will graduate from UK dental schools.

“These dentists will need wraparound support to enable them to deliver NHS care. We certainly don’t have an immigration policy that offers real certainty they can build a future here.”