Nearly a quarter of people surveyed in Greater Manchester struggle to get an NHS dentist appointment

The NHS GP Patient Survey found 23 per cent of 25,839 respondents in the area covered by NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board were unsuccessful when they tried to book an appointment in the last two years.

Of those, eight per cent said no appointments were available, while 12 per cent were told the dentist wasn't taking new patients.

Across England, more than a quarter of people could not access an NHS dentist, which the British Dental Association said is around 5.6m adults.

Of those who visited a dentist in Greater Manchester in the last two years, 17 per cent found the experience to be fairly or very poor.

In Greater Manchester, 23 per cent of 17,593 respondents who have not tried accessing dental care in the last two years said they did not think they could get an appointment.

The figures also show 21 per cent of patients who have not tried to get an appointment in Greater Manchester preferred to go to a private dentist, while six per cent found NHS dentistry too expensive.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "There are large parts of the country where NHS dentistry barely exists anymore.

"We will rebuild NHS dentistry, starting with an extra 700,000 emergency dentistry appointments. We will also reform the dental contract to encourage more dentists to offer NHS services to patients.

"Prevention is better than cure, so we will also introduce supervised tooth brushing for three to five-year-olds."