The UK Government is working with the National Health Service (NHS) to provide 700,000 additional dental appointments across England.

This initiative is part of the government's efforts to improve access to emergency dental services amid urgent patient needs.

NHS England has instructed integrated care boards (ICBs) to provide thousands of 'urgent appointment' slots over the next year.

Each ICB has been given a target based on local unmet needs, which have been assessed by the difficulty residents face in securing NHS dental appointments, which patients will be able to access through their dental practices.

Previous efforts, including an £88m ($111.29m) patient premium, have been ineffective in resolving the NHS dentistry crisis.

Amid falling numbers of new patients accessing services, the government has decided to scrap the premium and begin offering new appointments.

The additional appointments will be available from April and are focused on 'dental deserts', which are regions with a severe shortage of NHS dentists such as Norfolk and Waveney in the East of England.

UK Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock said: “NHS dentistry has been left broken after years of neglect, with patients left in pain without appointments, or queueing around the block just to be seen.

“Through our Plan for Change, this government will rebuild dentistry – focusing on prevention, retention of NHS dentists and reforming the NHS contract to make NHS work more appealing to dentists and increase capacity for more patients.

“This will take time, but today marks an important step towards getting NHS dentistry back on its feet.”

The introduction of new appointments comes in response to a growing disparity in access to NHS dentistry. This has led to 'distressing' situations such as that seen recently at St Paul’s Dental Practice in Bristol, which saw police needing to manage crowds seeking dental care.