Difficulties finding an NHS dental appointment should be eased with a website established by a High Barnet dentist

Hunting for an NHS dental appointment is a task which should become easier thanks to a website created by a High Barnet dentist with the aim of matching patients with practices which have spare capacity.

On any one day, Dr Majid Saeed – see above – estimates there might be anything up to a dozen or more patients in and around High Barnet who are searching for an NHS dentist without success.

Their plight is mirrored up and down the country because of the lack of dentists undertaking NHS work yet those practices with spare appointments are sometimes unable to fill them in time – a mismatch which Dr Saeed hopes his Odenta network will address.

Odenta – www.odenta.co.uk – went online in August and is signing up dental practices across the country.

Patients who register with the website are linked up free of charge with nearby dentists with available NHS appointments and others a distance away if they are prepared to travel further afield.

Dr Saeed is principal dentist at the High Barnet Dental Practice which has an NHS contract.

He hopes the website will assist the community because he recognises the difficulty people face when seeking an NHS appointment.

Since Odenta’s launch he estimates the website has found NHS appointments for over 70 patients.

The website is funded through its ability to find appointments for patients seeking private emergency treatment or other dental work for which a practice pays a booking fee.

“My aim in building this platform is to match patients with available appointments and I wanted to ensure we tackled the pressures people are under when looking for an NHS dentist and help them free of charge,” said Dr Saeed.

“Our system is fully automated, so when a practice has spare NHS appointments, patients are informed immediately, by alerts, text or email, so there is an immediate pathway between the two.

“In just four months the response has been so encouraging.”

So far well over 50 dental practices have signed up with Odenta and others are joining from as far away as Manchester and Birmingham, as well as from all around London.

Dr Saeed thinks his new platform will be especially welcome in parts of the country where there are no NHS dentists.

“NHS practices are expensive to run because NHS contracts have not kept up with inflation.

“They can be challenging, but where Odenta can help is by instantly matching any available appointments with the demand which we know is there and when there are patients prepared to travel who might well find appointments outside their immediate area.”

Dr Saeed has been with the High Barnet Dental Practice for the last 20 years and says he is only too well aware of the stress which people can face when struggling to find an NHS appointment.