Who owns each practice, from the register.
Companies House tells us who owns a company. The work is matching each registered practice to the right company, and saying on every match which rule we used and how sure we are. This page shows the rules, the numbers and what we refuse to do.
What we hold from Companies House today
Counted 7 Sep 2026.
One practice, one entry
Every practice on the four care registers (the Care Quality Commission for England, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority for Northern Ireland) is matched to its directory listing and, where there is one, to its company. We try the strongest match first and record how sure we are.
| What we match on | How sure we are when this is what matched | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| The same phone number | 0.90 | Matched |
| The same postcode and name | 0.85 | Matched |
| The same website | 0.80 | Matched |
| Name only, different place | 0.50 to 0.79 | Waits for a person to check |
| Weaker than that | below 0.50 | Not linked |
| Our targets: at least 97% of English dental practices matched or checked by hand; no practice linked to two companies; every unmatched practice listed with the reason. | ||
From the register, or matched by us
From the register.
The regulator names the company number, or the company’s directors, owners or registered office match the practice. Directors, controlling owners, secured loans and filed accounts are read from Companies House as filed. Changes (a new loan, a director or owner change, accounts filed) are dated by the filing, never by when we found it.
Matched by us: always labelled.
A link we made by rule. The product says which rule and how sure we are. Our own matches are never counted with register facts and never raise an alert by themselves.
What the filed accounts give us.
Net assets, cash, what the company owes within a year and later, and the average number of people it employed — read out of the inline XBRL in each filing, with the period it covers and the day it was filed. Turnover is the exception: four in five dental companies file micro-entity or small-company accounts, which are a balance sheet with no profit and loss account, so there is no turnover figure to read. The product prints “not filed” and says why, because blank is not nothing. The coverage table on how we collect the data counts how many practices carry each figure.
| Practices that are | Practices | ShareOut of 14,153 UK practices.All terms |
|---|---|---|
| Group (four or more practices) | 3,102 | 22% |
| Independent | 11,051 | 78% |
| Unknown (no owner on record) | 0 | 0% |
| Limited company | 8,038 | 57% |
| Limited liability partnership (LLP) | 60 | 0% |
| Partnership | 542 | 4% |
| Sole trader | 2,418 | 17% |
| Unknown (no company matched) | 3,095 | 22% |
Is a new company really an existing practice expanding?
When a new dental company is formed, we check whether it belongs to a practice we already know. Four rules can match; the strongest wins and we record which.
| Rule | What it checks | How sure |
|---|---|---|
| Shared director | A current director (name and month and year of birth) is also a director of a company linked to a practice we know | 0.95 |
| Shared controlling owner | A controlling owner is shared with a known practice's company | 0.90 |
| Same registered office | The new company's registered office is a known practice's address | 0.85 |
| Matching name | Two or more words of the name match, with a different place word | 0.80 |
When we checked 30 of these links by hand on 27 Aug 2026, 27 were right (90%). The number on each row is the rule’s usual reliability, not a check of that row.
What we call a group
An owner with four or more registered practices (UK), or four or more practices sharing one website (elsewhere). It is a simple count, not a judgement about how the company is structured, and it is stated on the row.
Three things this method never does
- A company that merely has a dental name never raises a new-practice alert on its own. Only a register entry does.
- Fewer than four practices sharing a website is not enough to call a group.
- A loan, a director change or an accounts filing is never shown to a practice owner about a neighbour. Owner accounts see public practice facts only.
- proof of legal ownership of any practice (the register is; our matches are labelled)
- a count of dental groups in the UK (our group rule is a count of practices, not a corporate structure)
Questions about ownership
- Is a match proof of legal ownership?
- A registered link is what the register and Companies House state. A match we made is labelled "matched by us" with the rule and how sure; treat it as a strong lead, not a fact, until you have checked.
- Why does a practice show "no company matched"?
- Sole traders and partnerships have no company record. Some limited companies are not matched yet. The page says which.
- Why does it say "not fetched yet"?
- We know the company exists but have not yet fetched its directors and owners from Companies House. They are unknown, not absent.
- What about Scotland?
- The Scottish register does not name owners, so the "registered owner" field is empty for Scottish practices. Companies House matching still runs.
- Do practice owners see this?
- Owners see who owns nearby practices from the register. They never see a neighbour's loans, accounts or warning signs. Reps and investors do.
- Why is turnover almost always blank?
- Because it was not filed. Four in five dental companies file micro-entity or small-company accounts, which are a balance sheet with no profit and loss account, so there is no turnover figure in the filing to read. Blank means not filed; it never means nothing. Net assets and the average employee count are in the great majority of filings, and those are what we use when we say how big the business behind a practice is.
- Where do the accounts figures come from?
- From the accounts each company filed at Companies House, read out of the inline XBRL in the filing itself rather than typed in by us. Every figure carries the period it is for and the day it was filed. They are for your information: never quote a practice's accounts back at them.