Sir, I read with interest your feature in a recent issue entitled 'The Dental Recruitment Crisis' (BDJ 2018; 224: 472–475). At mydentist, we recognise the acute shortage of clinicians nationally and the significant impact this is having on the ability of patients to access NHS dentistry. We are doing everything we can to address these challenges.

Yes, we must continue the public health initiatives that are raising awareness of tooth decay, improving oral healthcare, and reducing the need for expensive emergency dentistry. But we must also invest in training in the UK, so we can solve the recruitment crisis in the long term, and look overseas – to the EU and beyond – to attract the best professionals from around the world to practice dentistry here in the UK.

The difficulties faced by ORE dentists wanting to work in the UK, such as Anna Julin John who was interviewed in the feature, are severe and it often extremely difficult for them to secure the necessary mentorship to practise.

At mydentist, we are proud that we have more than doubled the number of mentors over the last year and now have around 400 in our scheme. That has been achieved through actively promoting the benefits as a means of combining professional development with helping the next generation of UK clinicians. We've already been in touch with Anna and spoken with her about opportunities to join us as a mentee.

Recruitment challenges are particularly significant in remote areas of the country, leaving patients unable to access NHS care. To address this we are simply asking dentists what they want: we want to work with dentists to create a package that suits them, their families and career aspirations to encourage them to settle in these locations.

Finally, several of the dentists in the feature noted their inability to spend time with patients with the pressures of delivering contracts, regulation and paperwork. Through our network of clinical support and central operations, we try to relieve our dentists of as much of this as possible, leaving them able to do what they do best: treat patients.

While we await details of the new NHS contract, and with the uncertainty of Brexit, we expect recruitment to remain a challenging issue. But, with the steps we've taken we believe we can create attractive opportunities for dentists wherever they are from.