Dentist running out of funding?

[mancitychick]

Firstly I am so disappointed that my 9 year old needs a filling. I brush his teeth, he is not allowed fizzy pop & we limit his sweet/choc/sugar intake, but I guess I have gone wrong somewhere. The dentist said it is in a milk tooth but as the tooth in question doesn't normally come out until they are 11yrs old she wants to fill it.

Anyway this was at our check up last week and they booked him in for the filling this coming Thursday. My Husband also had a rountine check up scheduled for tomorrow. The dentist practice has phoned today cancelling both my Husband's & son's appointments as apparently they have run out of funding and any work they do between now and April, they will not be paid for. They have re-schedules the appointments for the end of April.

Now I know that is only one month away but is this normal/common practice? Personally I have never come across it before but we have only lived in this area for just over a year.

Also one last question please :o , I asked about having a private filling for my son so that he can have a white filling as it is his fourth tooth from the front (bottom) that needs the filling and I thought a silver filling may really stand out but they said it is not something that they would normally do to a milk tooth. I am not bothered about the £65 it would cost to fill it privately, but on the other hand I don't want to have a white filling if its unadvisable.

Any comments will be appreciated

Thanks ;)

[Toothsmith]

The funding bit is VERY common this year! It's the wonderful new contract that came in last April.

Go to the NHS dentistry petition thread, and read some of the latter posts which have press articles linked into them.

Some practices have been running out of NHS funding since Xmas.

As for the white filling bit, that tooth is only going to be there for another 12-24 months tops.

The conventional white filling done on adult teeth isn't really suitable for baby teeth.

There is a white coloured material called Glass ionomer cement which is good for baby teeth. I used to do that anyway on the NHS when I still had a contract.

Amalgam is good and reliable if used well. I would just be grateful you have a dentist who wants to do something about it. Far too many just leave holes in baby teeth alone, as it's not time-efficient to fill them.