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

boozercruiser

Garetha wrote: »

Please keep us informed as to when you might be on the TV!

I think the BBC should also be inviting some of the dentists off this thread

It is very nice to see you still taking an interest in my Post Garetha.

I do hope that it has helped you....and other Forum Members visiting here.:D

boozercruiser

brook2jack wrote: »

Sorry BC denticare only run 18 practices in Wales so by no means the majority only a very tiny fraction. Corporates such as this tend to set up in places where small family dentists cannot make a living on the NHS .

Dental charges are set by the Welsh Assembly not by the dentists. Even at the levels set they are below what is paid in England (£16ish, £44 ish,£189ish) and the maximum paid is below Scotland £340 ish.

END

With respect, thanks you for 'putting me right' about the number of practices Denticare run in Wales.:D

However your logic that " Corporates such as this tend to set up in places where small family dentists cannot make a living on the NHS"
doesn't make any sense to me. Perhaps you can explain?
Unless of course the reason is that it is the Corporates who can push all of the 'extras' like 'top up' fees such as Hygenist charges for instance.

Not forgetting of course that from what my Dentist friends say here, the Dentists employed by them (Usually from the Balkans. My FIVE Dentists in six years have all been from that area) are payed well under what a regular english Dentist can expect to earn.

I think it's called 'undercutting' and how many jobs in how many industries have been lost because of it? (Immigration)

Millions I do believe.

jugglebug

boozercruiser wrote: »

brook2jack wrote: »

Sorry BC denticare only run 18 practices in Wales so by no means the majority only a very tiny fraction. Corporates such as this tend to set up in places where small family dentists cannot make a living on the NHS .

Dental charges are set by the Welsh Assembly not by the dentists. Even at the levels set they are below what is paid in England (£16ish, £44 ish,£189ish) and the maximum paid is below Scotland £340 ish.

END

With respect, thanks you for 'putting me right' about the number of practices Denticare run in Wales.:D

However your logic that " Corporates such as this tend to set up in places where small family dentists cannot make a living on the NHS"
doesn't make any sense to me. Perhaps you can explain?
Unless of course the reason is that it is the Corporates who can push all of the 'extras' like 'top up' fees such as Hygenist charges for instance.

Not forgetting of course that from what my Dentist friends say here, the Dentists employed by them (Usually from the Balkans. My FIVE Dentists in six years have all been from that area) are payed well under what a regular english Dentist can expect to earn.

I think it's called 'undercutting' and how many jobs in how many industries have been lost because of it? (Immigration)

Millions I do believe.

Not so much the extras, although that may be part of the equation but there is a significant economy of scale involved when you have multiple practices.
The suppliers will give them large discounts on equipment and materials.
Same for certain mandatory servicing and certification contracts (autoclaves and radiography kit for example)
The Care Quality Commission is currently registering dental practices in England for an estimated £1500 (they are not sure yet) for a single practice. However it wont be £4500 for 3, but significantly less.

boozercruiser

jugglebug wrote: »

boozercruiser wrote: »

Not so much the extras, although that may be part of the equation but there is a significant economy of scale involved when you have multiple practices.
The suppliers will give them large discounts on equipment and materials.
Same for certain mandatory servicing and certification contracts (autoclaves and radiography kit for example)
The Care Quality Commission is currently registering dental practices in England for an estimated £1500 (they are not sure yet) for a single practice. However it wont be £4500 for 3, but significantly less.

Thank you for that explaination jugglebug.

Perhaps combined with what you say....and lower wage costs etc. etc.
It all adds up to make sense now.

Of course whether all this has worked out for the benefit of Patients is debatable.

I would argue....not.

jugglebug

boozercruiser wrote: »

jugglebug wrote: »

Thank you for that explaination jugglebug.

Perhaps combined with what you say....and lower wage costs etc. etc.
It all adds up to make sense now.

Of course whether all this has worked out for the benefit of Patients is debatable.

I would argue....not.

Preaching to the Choir here
The current contract was originally presented to the profession in a very different form than what it looks like today.
I worked in one of the original pilots.
However when the contract was rolled out certain unpiloted aspects had been sneaked in and that is the main bugbear we have. The infamous UDA which values an extraction as much as several hours worth of Root treatment to save a tooth and gives no value at all to a scaling unless the words "periodontal treatment" have been attached to it

brook2jack

I work in a small family practice in a very cheap area(wages,property).
The money that comes into the practices pays the wages of the staff, expenses etc and that's it. We left the NHS because we could No longer viably make it work for us.

Corporates came with all of our expenses plus managers in each surgery, managers in each surgery cluster, managers above them, board members and shareholders to pay on top of that.

They pay their dentists less ,which will save some money, and may save on costs on bulk buying. However the corporate that moved into my area lost £2,000,000 on new NHS contracts. It makes many of us wonder how they intend to make a profit on the NHS to pay all the above? The obvious answer would seem to be to do as much work privately as possible.

The commisioning LHB bears much of the blame... When it comes to dentistry they want it as cheap as possible and when that could no longer be done and dentists left the health service , they hawked out dental contracts to lowest possible bids with no look to quality of service.

brighthair

sorry to go off topic slightly here. My dentist offers Denplan, and I'm not sure whether it would be more cost effective to do that?

At the moment I am a private patient and I pay approx £70 every time I go for a check up and scale and polish. The only other treatment I've ever had is a filling, and a broken tooth which had to be extracted. My hygienist says my teeth are always very clean, and my dentist seems happy with them
I guess what I'm asking is I'm not sure how Denplan works, or how much it is and if I would be better going on it

welshdent

One thing that was missed out on the patient charge bandings post is a band 4 - this is a one off course of treatment designed to get you out of bother i.e. emergency care. If you attend with a problem then this is what you would be charged. You would possibly then need to pay again for definitive treatment following a normal check up.
An example may be attending with an inflammed tooth. The dentist may open a band 4 course of treatment to dress the tooth and settle it then you would need further treatment such as a root filling or extraction to definitively deal with the problem

boozercruiser

brighthair wrote: »

sorry to go off topic slightly here. My dentist offers Denplan, and I'm not sure whether it would be more cost effective to do that?

At the moment I am a private patient and I pay approx £70 every time I go for a check up and scale and polish. The only other treatment I've ever had is a filling, and a broken tooth which had to be extracted. My hygienist says my teeth are always very clean, and my dentist seems happy with them
I guess what I'm asking is I'm not sure how Denplan works, or how much it is and if I would be better going on it

Blimey M8:) £70 for a check up and scale and polish is a good enough reason for me trying to stay inside the NHS system, in spite of my moans!:D

boozercruiser

welshdent wrote: »

One thing that was missed out on the patient charge bandings post is a band 4 - this is a one off course of treatment designed to get you out of bother i.e. emergency care. If you attend with a problem then this is what you would be charged. You would possibly then need to pay again for definitive treatment following a normal check up.
An example may be attending with an inflammed tooth. The dentist may open a band 4 course of treatment to dress the tooth and settle it then you would need further treatment such as a root filling or extraction to definitively deal with the problem

I have never come across a band 4 situation Welshdent. I mean, it doesn't seem to be included anywhere in the NHS bunf.

Can you say what cost that scenario is likely to be?

It sounds like it might be variable depending on what is going on in ones mouth!:)