Need an urgent dental appointment? There’s now more help available

News - 22 August 2025

If you’ve ever tried to get an urgent dental appointment, you’ll know it can be stressful and sometimes difficult to find help quickly.

The government has recently funded extra urgent and unplanned dental appointments across England. For Cheshire and Merseyside, this means 46,600 additional appointments are now available at 124 NHS dental practices – about a third of all NHS dental practices in our area.

These extra appointments are for people with urgent dental problems such as:

• Facial swelling
• Dental trauma (e.g. broken or knocked-out tooth)
• Uncontrolled bleeding
• Severe or persistent pain that isn’t helped by painkillers

How to get help

• The first step is to call the Cheshire and Merseyside Dental Helpline on 0161 476 9651 (open 8am–10pm, 7 days a week, including weekends and bank holidays).
• If you already have a dentist, contact them during their opening hours.
• If you don’t have a regular dentist, the helpline can give advice, check if you meet the criteria for urgent care, and help arrange an appointment if needed.
• Between 10pm and 8am, call NHS 111 for urgent dental advice.

For non-urgent dental appointments

• For information about how to find a dentist in your area, we have produced a helpful resource page explaining how you can find a dentist in Wirral, and which can be accessed here.

Your experiences matter
We want to know if these extra appointments are making a difference. Have you tried to get an urgent dental appointment recently? How easy was it to find help?

Tell us about your experience so we can make sure your voice is heard and help improve dental care locally. Leave feedback in our dedicated Feedback Centre here or contact us directly to tell us about your experiences.