The British Dental Association has said government must step up and honour its pledges to save NHS dentistry, as new evidence shows scammers are now active targeting patients across the country desperate to access care.

News comes as Good Morning Britain heard from Jacqui Nicholson from County Durham in November who was desperate for an NHS dentist after a two-year wait and fell victim to a scam she found on a website promoted by someone she trusted on social media. She paid £53 each for appointments for herself and her husband, reassured by the NHS logo, prepayment option, and a detailed email confirmation. When she discovered it was a scam, Jacqui contacted her bank but feared her refund claim might come too late.

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Needing urgent dental care, she felt deeply embarrassed, saying, ‘It looked so real... I even Google Mapped it.' Her advice: ‘It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake. Don't fall for it.'

The BDA understands fraudsters have already targeted patients in Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk, Devon and Merseyside using professional looking websites to secure pre-payments of up to £319.10 for care.

BDA Chair Eddie Crouch said: ‘Criminals are now preying on desperate patients left with no options. We need real urgency and ambition from Labour on NHS dentistry. Fraudsters will keep seeing real opportunities as long as the new Government's promises remain unkept.'

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Good Morning Britain: ‘I want to thank the British Dental Association for raising awareness of these kinds of scams, and we'll be looking at what more we can do within the law to clamp down on that. They've done the public a real service this morning in giving some practical advice and help to avoid other people being taken in.

‘But Eddie Crouch is also right that we need to stop the rot in NHS dentistry which has been allowed to continue for far too long. Eddie was just in the Department this week, with the British Dental Association meeting the Minister for Care.

‘Now the Chancellor has set the budget and the spending review totals for the next few years, we can negotiate the dentistry contract to deliver on our manifesto commitment of 700,000 more urgent dentistry appointments, but also to do the wider fundamental reform that NHS dentistry needs. So we will continue those negotiations and report back.'