Empty chairs, closed doors what the dental nurse visa changes mean for UK practices

A practice running below capacity

For around five years, two or three of the ten surgeries at David Chong Kwan’s Dunfermline practice have stood empty. It is not for want of effort. David has owned the practice since 1986, has trained more than 100 dental nurses and has mentored newly qualified dentists for two decades. Yet he still cannot recruit enough clinicians to fill his chairs.

“We’re just not firing on all cylinders,” he says. And he is far from alone: he describes speaking to many fellow practice owners in the same position. His experience offers a ground-level view of a national problem, and of a policy change that many in the profession believe has made it worse.

A 95% fall in dental nurse visas

On 22 July 2025, changes to the Skilled Worker route made dental nurses, dental hygienists and dental technicians generally ineligible for new sponsorship. Transitional arrangements may still protect some people already on the route, but the effect on new recruitment has been stark.

Home Office figures show just six sponsored work entry-clearance grants for dental nurses between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026. Over the previous three quarters, there were 122. That is a fall of 95%.

“Closing the dental nurse visa route has been a disaster,” David says.

The people behind the numbers

David has seen the consequences first-hand. One dental nurse he knew, working in the UK on a student visa, could not secure a dental nurse visa and had to return to India a month before sitting her Overseas Registration Exam. He had also offered a role to a dentist from Khartoum, a refugee from the war in Sudan, whose application was cut off mid-process.

For many practices, the dental nurse route did more than fill nursing posts. It allowed internationally qualified dentists to join the UK workforce while they worked towards registration as dentists. David sees clear value in that arrangement. A dentist working chairside already understands the clinical work, and may become one of the practice’s own dentists within a few years. As he puts it, “it’s kind of win-win.”

One of his current nurses was an endodontist in Ukraine and came to Scotland through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Although her immigration status is unaffected by the Skilled Worker changes, her path to UK registration remains long and uncertain. To David, she shows what overseas-trained professionals can contribute while they qualify.

Domestic training cannot fill the gap yet

David is a committed supporter of home-grown talent. He takes on trainee dental nurses all the time and would welcome more funding to train British nurses. But in his view, training has never kept pace with demand, and genuinely experienced nurses are scarce.

The same pressure applies to dentists. In 2025, internationally qualified dentists made up 53% of new General Dental Council registrants, compared with 47% who qualified in the UK. The government has committed 50 additional dental school places from 2027, split between the University of East Anglia and the University of Portsmouth. Welcome as that is, those students will take years to qualify. Practices need clinicians who can work now.

Getting the sequence right

David accepts the case for expanding domestic education. His objection is to the order of events: overseas recruitment was restricted before UK training could produce enough dentists and dental nurses to meet demand. “I do think it’s an act of self-harm,” he says.

For practice owners, the lesson is clear. Workforce planning now depends on growing and retaining local talent while understanding exactly which overseas routes remain open, and staying compliant with sponsor duties for anyone already employed on a visa. Until training numbers catch up, empty chairs like those in Dunfermline are likely to remain a familiar sight across UK dentistry.