Do I need to find a new NHS dentist?

[PopeSock]

Like a pillock, I've not been to my dentist for three years and four months, and so I've been dropped from their register. Apparently anyone who doesn't go for more than three years is dropped as a patient. Yes, this was bloody stupid of me, but I was working odd hours so I didn't make an appointment. Obviously I should have told my employer I need to take time off for a dentists appointment, but.. the benefit of foresight and all this.

So it seems that my only options are..

1) To find another NHS dentist, but I gather they're like gold dust these days.

2) Look into some sort of private healthcare scheme such as HSA Dental

3) Write to the dentist in question asking if he'd take me back on - though I have no idea if that's likely to work.

There's nothing wrong with my teeth to my knowledge, and I've had no aches or pains with them, but clearly a regular check-up's a good idea.

EDIT: Well, I rang round, and there are no local dentists taking patients! I was advised by the local PCT to try again in November. HSA does charge £12.50 for its middle-range dental plan, which covers £50 towards a checkup at a private dentist. My only concern with that, though, is that surely a private dentist would be more likely to recommend treatment that didn't really need doing, because they were making money from it. Or am I being paranoid?

[LondonDiva]

1 - before the change last year, patients were only registered with a dentist for 15 months.

2 - under the new system, no one is actually registered with a dentist. You're only registered for a specific course of treatment, rather than 'registered' as in a GP.

~~

If you can't find a dentist in your local area, how about close to where you work or one reccommended by a friend or colleague? Reccommendations are the best way to find a dentist. Unlike GPs, you can register with any NHS dentist you want.

have a look on www.NHS.uk (http://www.NHS.uk) and do a search by postcode. If they have an NHS contract and arerunning out of UDAs, they should operate a waiting list and tell you approx how long till you can be seen.

Where are you? your local PCT sounds a bit too blase for my taste. Ring their PALS (again find out through the search for services on the NHS website) and ask them to tell you which practices still have UDAs and if not, to tell you what system they've got in place to try and address the shortage as most of them will do to a degree.

[PopeSock]

What the PALS actually told me was that there were no free vacancies locally. I found the website before I rang them, but the closed once with a free vacancy was in a PCT other than the one I live in.

It's not like I'm in need of dental treatment right now, but it sucks that I got penalizing for *not* using the dentist. I did ring for an appointment at some point but was told the latest appointment was about three months down the line, and I'd no idea what day I'd be working on then.

[LondonDiva]

What the PALS actually told me was that there were no free vacancies locally. I found the website before I rang them, but the closed once with a free vacancy was in a PCT other than the one I live in. Why not go to the dentist that has avaialbility, even if it's not in your PCT?


but it sucks that I got penalizing for *not* using the dentist. As pointed out, everyone would get kicked off the plist under the old system if they were not seen within 15 months. The same could go for a GP list ... It's a way of managing list sizes and keeping costs current.

[Toothsmith]

No-one is actually 'registered' with an NHS dentist anymore now anyway. That was embarassing for the Government when headlines proclaimed how few people were registered.

A dentist has a contract to provide x 'Units of Dental Activity' for which he/she receives £x.

So long as a dentist has unused units, he technically 'has capacity' to see patients.

BUT - the dentist is under pressure not to use up all his units too early in the year (It creates bad headlines when in February and March dentists have to 'turn away NHS patients due to lack of funds') and so they have to ration the units they have into monthly targets. So - if the dentist has enough NHS work to hit his target each day/week/month, then it's still going to be very hard to get to see an NHS dentist in anything other than an emergency situation. (Often NHS dentists have a seperate contract obligation to provide 'access' for emergencies, in order to prevent the bad 'DIY dentistry' headlines.)

Anyone else get the impression that NHS dentistry is being run to avoid bad headlines rather than the benefit of actual patients?? ;)

[PopeSock]

Why not go to the dentist that has avaialbility, even if it's not in your PCT?

Oh? I didn't realize that I could. I thought you *had* to go to one in your PCT.