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

boozercruiser

welshdent wrote: »

The new contract sounds worse than the current and thats saying something! Just splashing fluoride all over the place. BC the dentistry I enjoy and am passionate about is simply not funded by the nhs and I am not going to be content with doing patch jobs to make up the financial slack. A MAJOR change in attitude from above is needed before they address my issues and I refuse to become a box ticker. The standards I try and maintain would apply wherever I was working TBH ... private or NHS

Yes, I can see all of that in respect of you Welshdent.

It seems to me as if you are caught a bit between a rock and a hard place in respect of the current and proposed changes possibly in the pipeline which I take it you know something about.:huh:

And of course you will NEVER get a change in attitude from the Dentist wannabies up above making the pronouncments.:)

I do believe that I can understand where you are comeing from in wanting to keep your standards high. In all my working life I worked in Engineering being a Quality Control Inspector making sure that people turned out a quality product. Most wanted to, but a minority couldn't give a toss and tried to cut corners so they could earn more money by turning out more product. (Here it's Patients....Human Beings with feelings....even more serious).

I suppose the reason I get so 'issed off here is that it seems to me like a minority of Dentists appear to be carrying out that policy.

i.e. Ship em' in ship em' out. Never mind the quality...feel the width.

boozercruiser

Hello Guys. All quiet on the Western Front!....BUT...I see on Cannel Four tomorrow night (Monday 23rd May) there is a program at 8.00PM I thought you might be interested in...(As printed from prog. guide)

Despatches: THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR DENTIST. An investigation into how some practitioners allegedly mislead patients about their rights to NHS treatment, and the potential neglect of childrens teeth by outsoursing lab work. (repeated on Thursday at 3.30AM).

Should be interesting.

welshdent

I can already predict it's content!

jugglebug

Can't remember the last time I used a lab to provide anything for a childs treatment.
Must be those orthodontists

To be honest booze we have known about this programme for weeks.
They will have found a few people bending / breaking the rules who none of us on the forum will defend I guess. Then the journalists will tell you that all dentists are doing it.
In the same way all used car salesmen are selling deathtraps, all locksmiths drill through grannies doors and then fit £2 yales in their place etc and so forth.
Bit like an anti amalgam programme shown a few years back. The position had been decided and all evidence presented was from that point of view (Unfortunately the BDA managed to help the journalist by having a spokesman who behaved like a fool in front of the camera)

boozercruiser

welshdent wrote: »

I can already predict it's content!

Well I can't predict a thing...but I was wondering if the prog. might touch on the Scale and Polish etc. which should be carried out by Dentist if needed Versus sent to hygienist at extra cost which has been mentioned somewhere in this thread!:)

I mean..these are rights to NHS treatment which are being denied some patients are they not?

brook2jack

Yes it will mention that. We've all known about this for weeks and have donned the tin hats already.

It's a fatally flawed system exploited by a small minority but punishing for the majority. It does not favours to patient or dentist and was universally derided at its instigation in 2006.

Will it result in a root and branch reform of the system ,this time taking note of what both patients and dentists have to say? Or will once again dentists both NHS and private be pilloried for the unethical behaviour of a few?

There is no amount of regulation that can make the derisory amount of money the government and patients put into NHS dentistry provide a universal service providing every clinical option. Those of us lucky enough to have the opportunity to withdraw from the majority of NHS service did so because we could not see how we could provide the level of service that we did pre 2006.

Many of those left practising NHS dentistry have no faith in the service,would leave if they could and would not advise their children to go into dentistry.

boozercruiser

brook2jack wrote: »

Yes it will mention that. We've all known about this for weeks and have donned the tin hats already.

Thanks for that info brook2jack. I was going to watch it anyway, but if my pet subject:eek: is in it then it becomes a MUST MUST:laugh:

Just when I thought that it was safe to go into the water:eek:

I need that tin hat as well because the prog may just spark off a tiny bit of further discussion here I guess.

But in that event...PLEASE....just let us all be kind to one another....no insults please.;)

boozercruiser

I just went to the Channel 4 Despatches link and filled in the survey at...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/dental-treatment-survey

Programme Navigation

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Dental Treatment: Survey

Features

Friday 13 May 2011
Dispatches is investigating the prices NHS dentists are charging their patients for treatment. The NHS does publish price bands for treatments - there are currently three prices ranging from £17 to £204 covering basic treatment such as scale and polish and filings to bridge work and root canals. But many people find their dental bills are far in excess of what Department of Health list price suggests. Many people are confused about what they should pay and what each individual treatment costs.
We want to find out from you about your experiences at the dentist. Do fill in our short survey to help us collect information about the state of the nation's dental bills. You details will be anonymous. The collected information will be used as part of the Dispatches programme - The Truth about Your Dentist.

P.S. I have also put a link to my post here on the Twitter connect for despatches http://twitter.com/#!/C4Dispatches

I bet none of you thought that I was a Twitterer!......please leave out the Twit comment...Ta.

brook2jack

As I've said before this thread has lost useful info in a morass of discussion. People who have a question are put off by the huge number of pages. If anyone comments on the programme then it would be more useful to do so on the discussion page and leave this thread purely for queries from MSers. Hopefully this will stop the endless duplication of replies.

boozercruiser

brook2jack wrote: »

As I've said before this thread has lost useful info in a morass of discussion. People who have a question are put off by the huge number of pages. If anyone comments on the programme then it would be more useful to do so on the discussion page and leave this thread purely for queries from MSers. Hopefully this will stop the endless duplication of replies.

I tend to agree with you "this thread has lost useful info in a morass of discussion. People who have a question are put off by the huge number of pages".

Well that is just the way it has gone over about two years now. (I see that I started the post 10th October 2008....and the practice I complain about looks more prevalent now than even then!).

However any ongoing debate/queries are nevertheless a part of the whole discussion. I think I will leave trying to tell MS users what they would like to say here to Footballers and injunctions!:)