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Free UK dentist comparison. Ratings cannot be bought — how we make money · methodology

Our Methodology

The Local Dentist is an independent comparison service operated by Elite Digital AI Solutions Ltd. We are a directory — not a dental practice — and we are not GDC- or CQC-registered ourselves; we compare regulated providers. This page explains exactly where our data comes from, how profile completeness and rankings work, how we make money, and how to correct something we've got wrong. Ratings and rankings are our editorial opinion, formed using the process below — they are not clinical advice and not a guarantee of any practice's service.

Where listings come from

Dental practices appear on The Local Dentist through two routes, and every profile states which applies:

Curated commercial listings — practices we have reviewed editorially, including practices that pay for listing tiers or referral partnerships. These profiles carry service, pricing, and review data.

Register imports — practices added from public register data: the CQC register of dental locations in England and the NHS website dentist directory. These profiles show factual register data — CQC location ID, registered address, registration status — and are labelled with their data source and snapshot date. Register-imported practices start unrated, with no pricing, and gain those fields only after verification. Inclusion from a public register is free and does not imply any relationship with us.

Our register data sources, in full:

CQC care directory. The Care Quality Commission publishes a free weekly CSV of every CQC-registered location in England — including all dental practices — with name, address, postcode, phone, website, provider, registration date, and service types, under the Open Government Licence (see cqc.org.uk → "Using CQC data"; there is also a free API). This backs each profile's CQC location ID, registration status, and address data. We acknowledge the CQC as the source of this information.

NHS ODS "General Dental Practices". NHS England's ODS Data Search and Export (odsdatasearchandexport.nhs.uk) publishes a free, nightly-refreshed CSV of general dental practices in England and Wales with their ODS codes — this backs the ODS code shown on profiles.

NHS website dentist profiles. The NHS website (nhs.uk) is the authoritative source for NHS availability and opening hours — including whether a practice has reported taking new NHS patients. We link out to the live NHS dentist search rather than scrape it, so you always see current availability.

GDC register. The General Dental Council register at gdc-uk.org covers individual dental professionals — around 120,000 dentists, dental nurses, hygienists, therapists, and technicians. There is no bulk download; we link profiles to the register for verification and never invent registration numbers.

NHSBSA Open Data Portal. The NHS Business Services Authority publishes monthly English NHS dental contract activity (opendata.nhsbsa.net), derived from the FP17 forms dentists submit for NHS courses of treatment. Where a contract's postcode matches exactly one listed practice — or a shared postcode is resolved by a distinctive name match — we show "delivered NHS dental activity" with the reporting month as evidence the practice does NHS work. Ambiguous matches are skipped rather than guessed, and delivering NHS activity is never presented as "accepting new NHS patients" — the NHS website remains the authoritative source for that.

NHS new-patient snapshots. A dated “taking new NHS patients” field is only written from a sourced dump (NHS Service Search / Directory of Healthcare Services CSV, or the official API when we hold a subscription key). Matching is ODS code first, then exact postcode plus a distinctive name token — the same honesty rules as NHSBSA activity. Absence from a dump never sets the flag to “no”. Snapshots older than 90 days are labelled stale in the UI. Patient reports on a profile are stored separately and are never copied into the official field. A public CSV of sourced rows is at/data/nhs-new-patients.csv.

Postcodes.io / ONS open data. Practice coordinates used for distance sorting are geocoded from each practice's registered postcode via postcodes.io, an open resolver serving ONS Postcode Directory and Ordnance Survey open data. Distances shown are straight-line approximations, not travel times.

Verification and safety gates

We verify each listing against official register data and show the CQC location ID (England) and the principal dentist's GDC registration number when they are on file, with links to cqc.org.uk and the GDC register at gdc-uk.org so you can check the current entry yourself. Practices in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are overseen by HIW, NHS boards (Combined Practice Inspections), and RQIA respectively.

Before any scoring happens, hard gates and caps apply:

Unregistered means unlisted. A practice we cannot match to a regulator's register or verify editorially is never listed. There is no score low enough for an unregistered provider of dentistry — it simply does not appear.

Lapsed registration suppresses the score. If our latest register snapshot shows a practice's CQC registration as anything other than registered, we withhold the score entirely and show a prominent warning instead, with the snapshot date and a direction to verify current status on the official register.

Unverified listings are capped at 75/100. While a practice has no CQC location ID on file, its total score cannot exceed 75 — clearly labelled — so an unverified listing can never outrank a register-verified practice on reviews alone.

An open inspection finding is flagged. Where the CQC's latest published inspection found action was needed and the improvement plan has not been closed, the safety pillar is capped and the profile carries a warning. Importantly, the CQC inspects dental practices on a risk-based sample and does not rate them — most well-run practices are never inspected — so a practice with no published inspection is never penalised for that, and we never invent a rating where the regulator gives none.

Verification is point-in-time — registrations change — so register-derived data carries a freshness stamp on the profile, and you should always confirm current status on the official register before starting treatment, especially with an online or at-home provider.

Profile completeness

We show the percentage of ten information checks recorded: full address, official website, telephone, public email, opening hours, linked sources, a named clinician with a GDC number, a published fee guide, sourced accessibility details and a checked booking link. Each check is worth ten percentage points. Missing data remains missing; weights are never redistributed.

This percentage measures the directory's information coverage. It does not assess clinical quality, safety, patient satisfaction or value. Registration and inspection records are reported separately. Paid placement does not affect the percentage.

Patient reviews are separate attributed data. We publish genuine submissions only after moderation and evidence checks, with the contributor's consent. Commercial relationships do not affect moderation. A missing rating means we have insufficient review data.

Practice updates and freshness

Practices can sign in through a short-lived, single-use link sent to the public contact email already recorded for their branch. Access to an email account confirms control of that contact address. It does not automatically establish ownership or approve changes. Our editor reviews conflicting information, sources and registration identity before publishing. Updates keep a dated audit trail.

NHS adult and child acceptance are recorded separately from NHS contract activity. New-patient confirmations expire after 90 days and then become unknown. Search filters check the date each time they run. Private acceptance is also a dated snapshot. Availability is always subject to confirmation when booking.

Local fee benchmarks require at least three other practices with a recent, explicitly comparable fee category, matching inclusions and membership conditions. We show the median, sample size, dates and source profiles. A starting price is not a treatment quote.

How rankings and matching work

Directory default order interleaves brands (round-robin) so groups and independents mix; users can re-sort. The comparison wizard scores practices on service overlap, location fit, budget alignment (for private treatment), credentials, and review quality. Paid tiers buy labelled visibility — "Featured" placement and inclusion as a referral partner — and never change a practice's rating or overrule poor service fit in match results. Anywhere placement was paid for, the card says so.

Pricing data

Prices shown are indicative "from" prices for private treatment only, based on published practice price lists and our market research — they are not quotes, and practices change prices without telling us. Always confirm the price directly before booking. Where a practice has not supplied pricing, we show "Contact" rather than an estimate. NHS dentistry carries fixed national band charges — we never imply the NHS charge varies by practice, and one course of treatment attracts one band charge (the highest band that applies), never a charge per item.

We Are Not a Dental Practice

Nothing on this site is clinical advice. Tooth whitening is legally dentistry — only GDC registrants may perform it — and we never present it otherwise; practices offering facial aesthetics are described in service terms only, never by prescription-only product names. If you need clinical advice, speak to a dentist. For urgent dental problems call NHS 111 — or 999 / A&E for facial swelling affecting breathing or swallowing, uncontrolled bleeding, or serious trauma.

How we make money

The Local Dentist earns revenue from optional paid listing tiers, referral partnerships, and pay-per-lead fees paid by practices. Comparison is free for patients. Paid status is disclosed on profiles and listing cards. We are not affiliated with the GDC, the NHS, or the CQC.

Affiliate and referral compliance

Some online dental providers — particularly at-home clear-aligner services — run affiliate programmes. When we participate:

  • Outbound referral links use rel="sponsored" and are labelled “Ad – Affiliate”.
  • We do not advertise prescription-only medicines in affiliate creatives, and we never name prescription-only products used in facial aesthetics — such treatments are described only as “facial aesthetics consultations” — in line with the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 and CAP guidance. We never imply tooth whitening can be carried out by anyone other than a GDC-registered dental professional.
  • Editorial comparison pages may discuss treatments factually for patient information; paid referral CTAs point to the provider's clinical service (for example an aligner assessment page), not a restricted product URL.
  • Affiliate discount codes are never shown alongside provider price comparisons or price-matching discussion — coded referrals appear only on standalone service-level placements, in line with programme terms.
  • We never publish or share an affiliate discount code until the programme has given written approval.
  • Referral status never changes ratings, match scores, or the order providers appear in comparisons.
  • Amazon Associates: as an Amazon Associate, The Local Dentist earns from qualifying purchases. Product recommendations appear only where genuinely relevant to the article, are always labelled “Ad · Affiliate link” next to the link, and never state a price, star rating, or stock claim — current prices and reviews are shown on Amazon itself. Recommending a product never affects any practice's rating or ranking, and we only mention oral-care products that are legal for over-the-counter sale in the UK — never products that would let anyone bypass a GDC-registered professional.

Corrections and complaints

If you run a dental practice and your listing is inaccurate — or you'd like a register-imported listing updated, claimed, or removed — email info@thelocaldentist.co.uk with the practice name and CQC location ID (or full address), or use the claim your listing page. We aim to respond within five working days and to correct verified factual errors promptly. Users can challenge any rating or data point the same way; where we agree, we fix it and note material corrections on the profile.

Updates and data freshness

Practice data is reviewed quarterly, private-treatment pricing benchmarks annually, and CQC care directory and NHS ODS snapshots are refreshed periodically — each profile shows the snapshot date its register data comes from. NHS charges are updated when NHSBSA publishes new rates (England bands are £27.90 / £76.60 / £332.10 for 2026/27). Last methodology review: August 2026.