How we spot a practice before it opens.
A new practice shows up in three places: a new company, a planning application, a register entry. We classify each new registration into four kinds and never call a first sighting an opening date. Our first test result, which we did not like, is below.
Three signs, in the order they usually arrive
| Sign | Source and how often | What we record | How sure |
|---|---|---|---|
| A new company | Companies House, daily: every new company registered as a dental practice or with a dental name; then its directors, owners and registered office | A new dental company. We also check whether it belongs to an existing practice, months before it registers | Very (registered as a dental practice); weak (dental name only, never an alert by itself) |
| A planning application | Council planning portals, daily: applications mentioning dental use: change of use, extensions, new builds, signage | A planning application, linked to a practice when we can match the address; otherwise new premises at "planning applied for", then "planning approved". We also read which way it points from the council’s own description — becoming a dental practice, leaving dental use, or works at premises already dental — and what kind of consent it is, so a shop sign or a condition discharge is not sold as an opening | Matched on postcode and street within 150 metres. Direction read by rule from the description, never a guess: where the words do not say, it stays “unknown” |
| A register entry | The four care registers (the Care Quality Commission for England, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority for Northern Ireland), on every refresh, including which practice a new entry replaced | The kind of new registration (1 to 4 below) and closures | The only sign that raises a new-practice alert |
Not every new registration is a new practice
| Kind | What it is | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Kind 1: Changed hands | An existing practice re-registered under a new owner or address | Whoever already supplies it should know. Not a new practice. |
| Kind 2: Existing owner expanding | An existing owner opened another site | The buying decision may already sit with the group. |
| Kind 3: New company, existing practice | A new company, but Companies House shows it belongs to an existing practice | Looks like a brand-new practice unless you check. We check. |
| Kind 4: New practice | Genuinely new | The only kind with no existing supplier. |
Of 1,237 registrations classified on 27 Aug 2026: 48% changed hands, 22% were new, 18% were an existing owner expanding, 12% a new company belonging to an existing practice.
Premises we are watching, by stage
These are premises that may become practices; each moves along as new signs arrive. Counted 7 Sep 2026.
First seen is not an opening date
First seen by DentalGraph on {date}. Not an opening date.
Every change is dated by the filing, application or registration itself, never by when we found it. Planning permission allows a conversion; it does not mean the practice opened. A register entry means the practice is licensed; it does not tell us when the first patient was seen. We never claim an opening date.
How much warning you get
Both figures count only companies formed within two years of registering. Counting every company the figures are 484 and 785 days, stretched by long-established owners opening new sites. Measured once, 27 Aug 2026; we will re-measure when the planning fix is built.
Planning records: 0 of 20
We took 20 practices that opened in 2025 and looked for a planning application at least three months before they registered. We found none. Councils’ search only covers the description, most fit-outs don’t say ‘dental’ there, and some conversions need no permission at all.
On re-checking five of the twenty by address: 4 had an application we had missed; 0 were missing from the council records; 1 needed no permission. Our search missed 4 of 5; the council records missed none; 1 genuinely had nothing to find. The fix (search by address when a practice registers, look back three years, add ‘surgery’ to the search terms) is not built yet, so we do not yet claim a figure for this sign.
Measured 27 Aug 2026.
- a count of new dental practices opening in the UK (we count registrations, and a registration is often a change of hands)
- an opening date for any practice
Questions about new practices
- What does "first seen on" mean on a card?
- The date we first saw any sign of that site: a new company, a planning application or a register entry. It is never an opening date.
- So are planning records useless?
- No, but we have not yet measured how good they are. See section 6.
- Which stage should a rep watch?
- Planning approved, and only in one direction. Permission is granted, the register entry is months away, and no supplier is in yet. Council records at that stage also cover the opposite — a dental surgery being turned into a flat, an office or a shop — plus shop signs, condition discharges and amendments, so we read the direction off the council's own description and keep the list "Premises approved, not yet open" to conversions TO dental use. The other directions are their own lists; a surgery leaving dental use is a closure signal, not an opening.
- Do you cover new practices outside the UK?
- The three stages are UK only: they need company, planning and regulator records that exist here and nowhere else we work. For the United States we do hold one dated national sign — a dental organisation being given a number by the federal provider registry (NPPES) for the first time. Those appear on What's changed as "New federal registration". It is not an opening date: some of them belong to a practice that has traded for years under a new company, and there is no US care register to confirm one either way.