Urgent Dental Service

You should contact your dental practice/clinic during usual opening hours if you require urgent dental treatment.

If you need urgent dental treatment outside of your dentist’s usual opening hours or if you do not have a dentist, please contact NHS 111 Wales for triage and advice.

When 111 Wales have undertaken your triage, they may provide you with a reference and a telephone number for the North Wales Dental Helpline.  A team of dental nurses will be on hand to assist with your dental needs and may offer you an appointment with a dentist as close to your home as possible. The appointment may not be on the same day. The North Wales Dental Helpline is very busy and you may experience difficulty in accessing the service. Calls take 10 to 20 minutes to complete. The call is always answered with a recorded message. We ask that you listen to all instructions in full in order to access a dental nurse triager.

• Please be aware that the urgent dental clinics operate an appointment-only service.
• Please do not attend any urgent dental clinics without an appointment, as you will not be able to be seen.

Urgent dental problems are those that cannot wait for routine dental care. They include:

• Dental and soft tissue infections or swelling of the face or mouth which is not spreading across the neck or towards the eye and where you do not feel unwell.
• Mouth ulcers, lumps or sores which have been present for more than 3 weeks.
• Bleeding following dental treatment which cannot be controlled at home.
• A broken adult tooth which causes severe pain that is not made better by painkillers.
• Severe uncontrollable dental and facial pain - constant toothache or pain from the mouth that is not made better by painkillers

Non-urgent dental conditions include:

• Pain that responds to pain-relief measures
• Minor dental trauma
• Post-extraction bleeding that the patient is able to control using self-care measures
• Loose or displaced crowns, bridges or veneers, fractured or loose fitting dentures and other appliances
• Fractured posts supporting crowns
• Fractured, loose or displaced fillings
• Treatments normally associated with routine dental care
• Bleeding gums

If your condition is non-urgent you should seek routine care with your own dentist.

There may be some non-urgent conditions which can be treated through self-care.

Further information about dental services can be found on the NHS wales website

Published: Dec 11, 2023