Asked for Dental NHS Scale and Polish.Told "Go to Hygienist at £25 extra"

boozercruiser

welshdent wrote: »

boozecruiser it may interest you to know that every fully private dentist I know has very few emergencies. That may not mean a lot to the average joe on the street but to the dentists here it may cast a different shadow so to speak.

I know the biggest concern to a lot of people is cost however cost is only expensive if you need much doing. Almost all dental problems are in effect self inflicted. That means that the better you are at managing cleaning and diet the less likely it is you will need anything doing. I once saw an 89 year old patient that had all their teeth and had never had any work done. When I saw them they didnt even need a clean.
What SHOULD be happening in a private practice is they have more time to spend with you working on prevention and as a result they can hopefully reduce the problems you get and as a knock on ... have fewer unexpected emergencies.

Ta for yet more input and I take your 'prevention is better than cure' message.

Pretty well all my life I have had check ups every around 12 months which have always included a 'clean up' if not any fillings or extractions.
I have always cleaned my teeth at least twice a day with a gentle tooth pick check as well. Bad on me I have never used floss though.

Like I say, I still have all of my front teeth, plus most of the rest. All be it with some fillings.

At 68 I think I am doing pretty well, and want to keep it that way.

I just wish that I could have kept my lovely English Dentist in Northampton I had for 25 years, instead of the mish mash of EU Dentists I have had to endure here in Wales for the last 6 years.

I don't have any confidence in any of them, partly for the reasons already given by your goodself. But I am stuck as it is 160 miles (and I don't drive) to Northampton from here.:D

Toothsmith

That is true.

I hardly have any proper emergencies now.

I have a few people with chipped old fillings, and the odd broken cusp of a tooth with an old filling in it, but our time management now is such that the vast majority of these problems are seen and sorted on the day the patient rings up.

The weekend emergency rota I have with the (private) practice down the road is also very quiet.

It really is an event if my mobile rings on a weekend when I'm on call! Even then, it's just as likely to be a holidaymaker with a toothache, or someone who doesn't go to a dentist, but now has toothache, or someone who can't access a decent NHS out-of-hours service. (All of these people are generally made better instantly by hearing the cost of my out-of-hours call-out fee for non-registered patients! )

welshdent

Thats what I long for toothsmith!! One day! That said the vast majority of the emergencies I see are usually everyone elses patients!!!! Like you most of mine are chipped teeth/restorations. I have had to be quite fussy about the length of my emergency appointments but the desk is getting there slowly!

Savvy_Sue

bc, given that one is no longer registered with an NHS dentist, and given the fact that it's not likely to get any better / any easier to access NHS dentistry in future even if you HAVE been with the NHS, have you got much to lose by looking into private dentistry now rather than later?

If you feel you're still being ripped off, you can go back to your succession of EU dentists.

DH and I have no regrets: I was fed up of the 3 boys and I being in and out within 20 minutes for checkups with rushed suggestions in heavily accented English that x, y or z might need doing for them at some indeterminate point in the future.

And it was the private dentist who suggested removing one of DH's teeth rather than attempting a root filling and crown, which I didn't trust the NHS chap to do, even if he'd offered it privately. So we saved about £400 there for starters!

I thought we might get 'cosmetic' treatment pushed at us, because that is one of the surgery's features and one of the dentists has done a lot of extra training, but it hasn't happened. We don't seem to have needed more treatment than before. So we're paying more for checkups, and we're encouraged to go to the hygienist, but long term I think it's worth it, especially for the boys (now grown ups!) who are learning that you pay to look after your teeth, but it's worth it.

Look at Toothsmith's signature, follow his advice, see if you can't spot the difference!

That reminds me, must see if DS1 has found a new dentist now he's moved way across town!

brook2jack

All of the private dentists locally (majority of us ) have maintaince schemes which pay for in a year 2 check ups,2 hygiene visits, xrays, emergency treatment and emergency call out(bar £15 to £25 excess) and insurance for accident etc.

The cost per month is £8.50 to £11 depending on practice. Yes you pay for treatment on top (fillings £30 to £70 typically crowns £275 to £350 ish) but these should NOT be regular expenses.

boozercruiser

I thought some people here might be interested in ... a little of my corrospondence to the Denticare Practice Manager.................

With respect to you there is something else now that I can't quite fathom out. When I pointed out to you that perhaps it is best that I take up your kind offer to have the treatment done by another Dentist you have advised me that I would have to pay for the check up and x ray I already had. Then pay for whatever band I fall into depending on what another Dentist says....

So then, I express that I am not happy with how I am treated by a particular Dentist employed under the Denticare organisation, and then if I want to take up your offer(which I didn't originally request) to change Dentist in the same Practice and I have to pay extra for the privilege? I must say that have never before heard of an unhappy customer being charged MORE before!

boozercruiser

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

bc, given that one is no longer registered with an NHS dentist, and given the fact that it's not likely to get any better / any easier to access NHS dentistry in future even if you HAVE been with the NHS, have you got much to lose by looking into private dentistry now rather than later?

If you feel you're still being ripped off, you can go back to your succession of EU dentists.

DH and I have no regrets: I was fed up of the 3 boys and I being in and out within 20 minutes for checkups with rushed suggestions in heavily accented English that x, y or z might need doing for them at some indeterminate point in the future.

And it was the private dentist who suggested removing one of DH's teeth rather than attempting a root filling and crown, which I didn't trust the NHS chap to do, even if he'd offered it privately. So we saved about £400 there for starters!

I thought we might get 'cosmetic' treatment pushed at us, because that is one of the surgery's features and one of the dentists has done a lot of extra training, but it hasn't happened. We don't seem to have needed more treatment than before. So we're paying more for checkups, and we're encouraged to go to the hygienist, but long term I think it's worth it, especially for the boys (now grown ups!) who are learning that you pay to look after your teeth, but it's worth it.

Look at Toothsmith's signature, follow his advice, see if you can't spot the difference!

That reminds me, must see if DS1 has found a new dentist now he's moved way across town!

Yes, where the Dentist situation used to be so easy.....most went to the very nice usually English NHS Dentist, trained in ENGLAND and bye and large really good and who one could TRUST.

Now I go to the EU Trained (Oh! yes) from Latvia or wherever, and you can just tell that everything is different in approach. God knows what standards the Training is. Are proper checks made? I think there are flaws there just waiting to be exploited.
Particularly now the big business (Denticare here in Wales) have more or less taken over.

I am reluctand to bring politics into it.....but the last Government made a right mess of Dental Care.....and now anyone wanting an NHS Dentist (if one can find one) is paying the price in both cost (A check up and fillings where around £13 about 3 years ago....now £39 for instance) and quality.:mad:

Gotta go out now...bye....:D

brook2jack

It is not the fault of foreign trained dentists , yes some have different approaches differences in training , but very many come over with post graduate training and experience in private practice. They come over lured by promises of how easy it will be to work on the NHS and are then appalled at the reality and often then go home or into private practice. They cannot provide the same standard of service they can in their own countries.

In Wales all dentists wherever they qualify ,before they can practice on the NHS , have to undergo a years vocational training or equivalence training . If they come from non EU countries they also have to pass a series if international qualification exams.
You are blaming individuals where it is a system that is at fault. There are more British dentists than ever but experienced dentists are leaving the NHS because they cannot offer the same service as years ago and newly qualified dentists become so disillusioned after a few years NHS working that many as soon as they have experience and further qualifications leave the NHS asap.

Over the last two years you have had numerous complaints about your dental practice. You are obviously not going to get what you want there. It would appear your options are accept that by staying there you will see a different dentist each time who you may not "gel" with and have the same discussions with over scale and polishes , but who will be cheap ( I know you don't think £39 is cheap but at £130 plus an hour just to keep one surgery going it is cheap), or pay for the time , experience and care of a dentist that will suit you.
I think you will find all over the country very few of the traditional family dentists have space for new NHS patients and most NHS spaces will be in the corporate clinics who are health boards preferred providers.

George_Bray

I've come across another aspect of 'scale and polish' which I consider to be a scam and a rip-off. When it was suggested I pay for a scale and polish with the hygienist at a cost of about £30, I said no, I'll make do with whatever scale and polish is included within the dentist's band 1 treatment arrangement. This should have been about £16.50, all inclusive, for band 1.

But they got the extra £30, almost, by another ruse, and charged me under band 2 (£45.60) for a 'periodontal' scale and polish, even though the dentist spent no more than a few minutes on one of the briefest, quickest scales/polishes I've ever had done. I asked for a print-out of the work done and it appears as 'prolonged periodonal' treatment. That's a lie. By any common sense definition of the word 'prolonged', this wasn't prolonged at all. It was brief. I'm now told, the NHS allows the dentist to charge for level 2, if you're deemed to have periodontal issues, even if it doesn't affect the time they spend.

That's a price hike from approx £16.50 (level 1) up to £45.60 for NOTHING.

Warning - if you have 'scale and polish' on the NHS, insist it's a normal scale and polish. Make sure it's not classified as 'periodontal' scale and polish, unless they are genuinely going to spend 30 mins or something.

Toothsmith

Complain to the PCT George.