Hey Kunal,

Thanks for flagging this. It sounds like the issue might be down to your practitioner locking settings. If practitioner locking isn’t enabled, NHS patients can still book private appointments online—even if your portal is intended for private patients only.

To restrict this, you’ll need to check your online booking configuration. Here’s a quick run-through:

1. Log in at portal.dentally.com.

2. Navigate to Online Booking > Plans & Pricing.

3. Click Manage and switch on the Practitioner Locking toggle.

With that enabled, NHS patients should only be able to book NHS appointments with their assigned practitioner. You can check out our Help Centre article here for all the details. If you need any further help tweaking these settings, our support team is here for you! 

Hey Saymon

Thanks for your response.

I just had a look and practitioner locking is actually enabled and still allows NHS patient to book online.

Hi Kunal,

Thanks for checking that out and letting me know. With practitioner locking enabled, NHS patients should only be able to book NHS appointments with their assigned practitioner. However, they can still book private appointments if those types are enabled, which might be causing some confusion.

You can double check your online booking settings under ‘Online Booking > Appointments’ to make sure the NHS appointment types are correctly configured and that only the intended practitioners are available. If everything looks right and the issue still persists, it’s worth contacting our Support team as they’ll be able to investigate further and see exactly what’s causing this to happen. 

Thanks for getting back. i want to disable NHS pts from booking or amending appointments online. the online facility needs to be for private pt only.

Hi Kunal,

I’ve asked our Support team to get in touch with you shortly to help sort it out. 

Hi ​@Kunal Rai! Simon here from the Dentally Portal team. Just to make sure I’m understanding this one, are you saying that you would prefer that an NHS patient isn’t allowed to book online for a private appointment? If that is true would you mind going through some of the issues you’re seeing as a practice by letting this happen?

In terms of management of an appointment and cancelling online. You can disable the option for patients to cancel an appointment online as a setting in the Manage App under Online Booking > Settings.

Hi Simon

I want to restrict the online service for private appointments/treatments only new pts and existing pvt pt]. if an existing NHS patient wants to book an nhs appointment or cancel it they have to call in and speak to reception.

Ah okay that is entirely possible! As long as you don’t configure any NHS appointment in the Manage App and enable them, a patient will only be able to book a private appointment online (that you have also configured & enabled)