Dentists are working in McDonald’s as thousands are unable to secure a licence to practice despite a major shortage, a report reveals.
A registration ‘bottleneck’ means dentists who trained overseas but want to work in the UK are being forced to make a living in fast food restaurants.
The Association of Dental Groups said there is currently a backlog of 6,000 fully-trained overseas dentists in the queue to register with the General Dental Council.
But at the current rate it will be years before they are allowed to treat patients as they must first demonstrate their competency by passing the Overseas Registration Exam - and that is limited to just 600 applicants at a time.
The ADG report says 4.5million patients in the UK are going untreated each year due to the 2,749 shortfall in the dental workforce.
