When we decided to expand beyond Manchester, the question wasn't whether to open another location. It was where the data actually justified the investment.
Leeds won that analysis decisively. Here's what the numbers revealed.
The Access Gap in West Yorkshire
The NHS dental access crisis has been well documented nationally, but regional variation is substantial. According to the House of Commons Library analysis of March 2024 data, 32% of adults in the South West had seen a dentist in the previous two years, compared with 44% in the North East and North West.
What's less discussed is how this translates into actual patient behaviour when access fails.
The same analysis found that in areas with lower NHS dental provision, A&E attendance for dental problems increases measurably. In the South West, approximately 1 in every 460 people visited A&E with a dental problem in 2023/24. In London, that figure was 1 in 860.
Yorkshire and the Humber sits in an interesting position. The Healthwatch West Yorkshire report presented to the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board noted that "significant numbers of adults and children in West Yorkshire are unable to access routine NHS dentistry," putting them "at greater risk of developing significant oral health issues and needing urgent and emergency dental treatment."
The same report identified West Yorkshire as having one of the highest incidences of incisor caries in children aged 5 in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
Leeds Specifically
Leeds has a metropolitan population of 845,189 as of 2024, making it the second largest local authority district in the UK after Birmingham. The wider Leeds City Region encompasses over 3 million people.
The NHS West Yorkshire ICB FAQ documentation states directly: "We are aware of the extensive waiting lists for children and adults, and we are exploring ways to address this issue."
The ICB also acknowledges that unlike GP registration, dental patients are not registered in the same way, meaning patients can contact any practice, but practices manage their own books and many simply cannot accommodate new NHS patients.
What this creates is a specific market condition: substantial unmet demand for both routine and emergency dental care in a population large enough to support multiple practice models.
The Emergency Care Pricing Landscape
When we surveyed Leeds private emergency dental pricing in late 2024, we found a consistent pattern. Emergency consultation fees at established Leeds practices ranged from £49 to £99, with treatment charged additionally.
For example, Enhance Dental in Garforth lists emergency appointments at £90, with a tooth extraction adding £120 to that figure. VICI Dental charges £90 for a new patient exam. Horsforth Dental offers emergency appointments at £49. We've done a more comprehensive breakdown of emergency dental costs in Leeds if you want the full picture.
These prices reflect standard private practice economics, but they create a specific access barrier. For someone earning median wages in Leeds, a £90 consultation followed by £120+ treatment represents a meaningful financial decision, particularly if the emergency occurs on a weekend when options are limited.
What the ICB Is Trying to Do
Credit where it's due: the Yorkshire and Humber ICBs have been more proactive than many regions.
According to Healthcare Leader's analysis, the Yorkshire ICBs "inherited a challenging situation in NHS dentistry, with significant difficulties around access, workforce capacity, and morale." Their response has been to focus on flexible commissioning and reinvesting predicted under-delivery funds into priority areas.
Andrew Hobson, deputy director for dental commissioning for the region, noted that each ICB has "taken a position on the likely value of total under delivery, compared to contracted levels, for this financial year and re-invested this in priority areas upfront."
The government's February 2025 announcement of 700,000 additional urgent NHS dental appointments nationally is another step, with ICBs given targets based on estimated local unmet need.
But these are systemic, slow-moving interventions. They don't address what happens when someone develops an abscess on a Saturday night in LS12, which is why we've written extensively about the emergency dentist landscape in Leeds and what patients actually face.
Our Model
We opened at Whitehall Estate in Armley deliberately. Good transport links. Actual parking. Space to build properly.
The pricing model is simple: £20 emergency consultations with X-rays included. Check-ups at £20. Fillings from £99.
The economics work because volume compensates for margin. A practice charging £90 for consultation needs fewer patients to cover fixed costs. A practice charging £20 needs more patients but removes the financial barrier that causes people to delay care until problems become expensive to treat.
This isn't charity. It's recognising that in a population of 845,000 with documented access gaps, there's a sustainable business model in being genuinely accessible rather than maximally profitable per visit.
Early Observations
We're months into operation, so any conclusions are preliminary. But patterns are emerging.
A significant proportion of patients present having delayed care for months or years. The conditions we're seeing reflect that delay: infections that started as cavities, pain that started as sensitivity, problems that would have been simpler and cheaper to treat earlier.
This matches what the research predicts. When access barriers exist, whether financial or availability-based, people wait. Waiting makes things worse. Worse conditions cost more to treat and cause more suffering in the interim.
The British Dental Journal's 2025 analysis on NHS dental access created a Public Dental Access Index examining both supply and demand factors across English local authorities. West and South Yorkshire showed higher appointment success rates than many regions, but also higher income deprivation scores and higher proportions of households without cars.
Transportation matters for emergency care. When you're in pain, the ability to actually reach a practice determines whether you get seen.
Implications for Other Practices
The Leeds market isn't unique. Similar dynamics exist in any major UK city where NHS dental capacity has contracted while population has grown.
The House of Commons analysis noted that dental chairs in NHS practices were used for NHS activity only 60% of the time in the South West, compared to 77% in the North East and Yorkshire. That gap represents capacity that exists but isn't being deployed for NHS work.
For practice owners considering expansion or repositioning, the question isn't whether unmet demand exists. The GP Patient Survey 2024 found approximately 1 in 4 patients who tried to see an NHS dentist in the past 2 years were unable to do so.
The question is whether your model can serve that demand sustainably.
What We're Learning
The data that convinced us to choose Leeds is proving accurate. Access gaps are real. Demand exists. Patients who've been unable to find care elsewhere are finding their way to us.
What the data didn't fully capture is the human element. People aren't just delayed statistics. They're individuals who've been in pain, who've been anxious about their teeth, who've felt failed by a system that's supposed to serve them.
That's not something you can put in a market analysis. But it's what you encounter every day once you're actually operating.
Leeds needed this. The numbers said so before we opened. The patients confirm it now.