Desperate patients have been queuing in the freezing cold to get in with an dentist.

Dentists at a practice in Bristol told how families travel hundreds of miles to get NHS care, and some people turn up with life-threatening infections. The was told that children turn up having never seen a dentist since birth.

The Mirror has launched the Dentists for All campaign after a decade of Tory funding cuts resulted in an almost a complete closed shop, with millions locked out of accessing NHS care. We revealed 96% of dentists are not taking on new adult NHS patients and told horror stories of people ripping out their own teeth and going into debt to travel abroad for private treatment.

A year ago, police were called to manage the massive crowd when St Paul’s practice in Bristol opened its books to new NHS patients. Then, before Thursday, it had announced it would accept the first 100 people at NHS patients from 1pm. It saw patients queuing down the road outside from 7am in the bitter cold and fog.

One of them was dad-of-two Wayne Jones, 51, said he was determined to get his two young children, aged 5 and 7, registered because he missed out last time. He revealed they'd never seen an NHS dentist because he has not been able to register with an NHS provider.

He said: “It’s so hard I have been everywhere trying to get them registered since they were born and nowhere has ever taken me. They have never had a check-up at a dentist other than with the GP. It should not be this hard to get this service.

“I queued here last year too but just missed the cut-off so I was determined to get in this year. I just think it’s so bad that we are forced to queue like this and be paraded in public just because we need help getting a dentist. Something needs to change, something needs to be done to help hard working people.”

The dental practice has 14,000 patients but more than 9,000 of them are from outside Bristol from places like Devon, Cornwall and Plymouth and even Wales.

Shivani Bhandari, Operations Manager Director, said: “Nothing has changed in the last year, nothing at all, it is still hard as ever. I don’t want to be political but nothing will change until the Government takes this problem seriously.

“Having 9,000 patients not from Bristol just shows you this is a national crisis. We are just a small practice, there is only so much we can do, we can't solve this problem but maybe the Government could take note of what is happening here and use us as a case study for how to move forward in future.”

Principal dentist Gauri Pradhan said: “We are seeing people come from hundreds of miles away, taking their children out of school, using holiday days, just to register with us. We are seeing so many people who have terrible infections, life threatening sometimes, and they need to be referred to A&E immediately or children that have never seen a dentist since birth, it cannot go on like this.”

The Mirror campaign sparked a huge response from readers who reported yanking out their own teeth, living on painkillers, driving 200 miles for an NHS dentist or travelling abroad to places as far away as India for cheaper private treatment.

One of those queuing in Bristol was former soldier Indica Watson, 41, who said he had not seen an NHS dentist for 16 years since he was in the Army. Originally from Cornwall he has recently moved to Bristol and was in the queue from 7am.

He told The Mirror: “The last time I saw a dentist I was in the army and every attempt since, maybe 70 to 80 times trying to get an NHS dentist, I’ve been told the same old thing which is they are just not taking on and you have to go private which is incredibly expensive. I just think that Britain as whole, we’re better than this, we can be doing a lot better for the people of this country.”

Gran Rosie Robertson, 70, told the Mirror she had to decide between paying household bills or getting crowns done privately. She told how she was determined to register at the practice as a much needed way of saving money.

She said: “It never used to be like this, when my children were small you could just take them to the dentist no problem but those days have long gone. I have been trying to find one for such a long time and you just can’t find them. The industry is just in a mess so I was very lucky to find out about this.

“I have work that needs to be done and it’s just so expensive to get it done privately and so I am prepared to wait as long as it takes to get registered here. Normal people like me need help, so I am so glad I can get registered at a place like this. I am more than happy to stand for four hours in the cold to do so but we shouldn’t have too.”

Our campaign, in partnership with the British Dental Association, has reported how the overall NHS dentistry budget for England has remained at around £3 billion for a decade but has seen a £1 billion real terms cut over this period due to inflation. It has become increasingly made up of the contribution from patient charges which have gone up by 45% in the last decade. The BDA says the funding provided for NHS dentistry is only enough to cover less than half the population of England.

Last year’s scenes outside St Paul’s dental practice became emblematic of the national crisis and were used in a poster campaign by period to last year's .

Health Secretary Wes Streeting personally attended the scene and vowed to finally renegotiate the NHS contract which pays dentists the same amount for three fillings as 20 and was branded “not fit for purpose” by the Health Select Committee. It also promised to deliver 700,000 new urgent dental appointments and to roll out tried and tested preventive programmes in schools.

However the British Dental Association has declared “there has been no material progress to date” against these promises. Shawn Charlwood, BDA chair, said: “We have a new Government, but it feels like more of the same for NHS dentistry. Wes Streeting says he wants to take the NHS ‘back to basics’. Ending scenes that belong outside bakeries in the Soviet bloc would be a good start. Making promises won’t restore access to millions, only action will.”

Carla Denyer, Green Party leader and MP for Bristol Central, said: “The astonishing scenes we saw outside St Paul’s this time last year were a testament to how broken NHS dentistry is, and a year later things haven’t got better. For new patients, NHS dentistry has essentially ceased to exist. Dentistry is meant to be a core part of our NHS. A pain-free life should not be reserved for those who have the money to pay for private health and dental care.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government inherited a situation where desperate dental patients are forced to queue around the block for treatment. We are rebuilding NHS dentistry but it will take time. We are starting with an extra 700,000 urgent dentistry appointments to help those who need it most and will reform the dental contract to encourage more dentists to offer NHS services to patients. We will also introduce supervised tooth brushing for three-to-five year-olds in the most deprived communities.”