Tales of pain and patience: the story behind the dentistry queue in Bristol branded “a visual representation of the depth and scale of the crisis in NHS dentistry”

The queue meandered into the distance, past offices, flats and houses; there were hundreds waiting, shoulder to shoulder, old and young.

But this patient crowd were not tennis fans outside Wimbledon or mourning the loss of a monarch or hoping to purchase a bottle of Prime – they were trying to register for an NHS dentist in England in 2024.