UK has dentists working in McDonald’s and Subway as it struggles to fill work gaps
The Association of Dental Groups (ADG) submitted a new report to MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday (18 June), showing that 4.5 million patients are going untreated annually due to a shortfall of almost 2,800 in the UK’s dental workforce.
At the same time, fully trained dentists from overseas who are living in the UK are having to make ends meet by working in McDonald’s and Subway fast food restaurants because of the registration system’s bottleneck, the group said.
The group has called for the implementation of a number of action points that can address the gap in the dental workforce. These interventions can be put to work in the short term, without legislative change, and with no extra cost to the government, since the current dentistry underspend provides sufficient funding, it said.
- Commit to supporting recruitment: Unlock the barriers preventing the 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the registration queue from practising as dentists in the UK, as a matter of urgency. Many of these dentists are here working in unskilled roles. GDC must reform the Overseas Registration Examination (ORE), since currently each ORE sitting only has capacity for 600 students.
- Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to use their full commissioning powers: Fully utilise the current dental workforce team available, and spend all of their dental budget on dentistry.
- Improve workforce planning: Recognise the skills mix across the full dental team and how best it can be deployed within the ‘mixed economy’, as well as supporting dental school improvements.
“We need to unlock the barriers preventing the 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the registration queue from practising as dentists in the UK, as a matter of urgency,” said Neil Carmichael, Executive Chair, Association of Dental Groups.
“Many of these dentists are here working in unskilled roles. The General Dental Council must reform the Overseas Registration Examination, since currently, each exam sitting only has a capacity for 600 students. At that rate, it will take years to get them qualified.
“The ADG has been speaking to fully-trained dentists, such as Ahmed, who has come to the UK from Egypt. He is having to work in McDonald’s cleaning the lavatories because he can’t get through the ORE! This is crazy and should be our number one priority.”
There are currently over 3,000 unfilled vacancies for dentists across the NHS and private sectors. Data published by NHS England for the period to March 2024 shows there were 2,749 full-time equivalent (FTE)
NHS dentist vacancies.
These are roles that have been open for an average of 180 days per post. Furthermore, with 411 (FTE basis) vacancies in private practices still open, it is clear that, irrespective of the need for NHS contract reform, there is a system-wide shortage of dentists in the UK.
“Despite holding a postgraduate master’s degree in dental implantology and being a fully qualified Egyptian dentist, I am currently working in the UK at McDonald’s. I am frustrated by the ORE system and have been trying since 2022 to complete the GDC registration to practice here in the UK,” said Ahmed, a trained dentist from Egypt currently working in McDonald’s and as a part-time dental nurse.
His position is not unique. Shoaib Saiyed is a trained dentist from India who is currently employed at a Subway fast food restaurant.
“I am a fully trained dentist with 10 years’ experience – but right now my job title is ‘Sandwich Artist!’ I have been making sandwiches at a Subway fast food outlet in Birmingham for over nine months. I am very frustrated that I can’t get a place on the ORE. I don’t understand why the GDC doesn’t create provisional registration, so that we can be
tried and tested. I just want to prove myself!”
