i lost my dentist now wat

Katie-Kat-Kins

No sympathy, that appointment could have been used for someone else, perhaps an emergency. If you couldn't make it you should have cancelled with 24 hours notice. You are lucky that you haven't been charged a cancellation fee, lots of service providers (driving instructors for example) would do.

No excuse to fail to turn up for an appointment!

piratefairy

I'd imagine her NHS dentist probably did charge a cancellation fee, if she cared enough to check.

brook2jack

Unfortunately since 2006 NHS dentists cannot charge a fine for patients failing to turn up. That has resulted in a massive increase in people failing to keep appointments.

Hence in the latest reforms to prop up the sinking NHS dentistry ship one of the proposals is to reintroduce fines for people failing to keep appointments or cancelling at the last moment as it seems what you don't pay for you don't value.

piratefairy

Well mine did last year.

jugglebug

piratefairy wrote: »

Well mine did last year.

Then they broke the rules.
A dumb rule but a rule anyhow.

The current NHS contract says that dentists are not allowed to do this. They are on the other hand allowed to withdraw from giving NHS services to that patient for non attendance so if I were you I wouldnt push it

piratefairy

Hmm, interesting. I've since moved so am with another dentist anyway, but would have taken a stand after that.

donnac2558

My dentist charges £20 when you go for the first appointment. You get it refunded at the end of the treatment. Its like a deposit to make sure you come back for the rest of the appointments.

brook2jack

When you make an appointment for anything hairdressers,garage,dentist or book a table at a restaurant and don't turn up you deprive someone else of that service and cost that business money as overheads still have to be paid.

the conservatives are proposing a £20 fine for missed appointments. This is still a token as for longer appointments it would still only cover a fraction of the overheads but speaking from experience as soon as fines are introduced failure rates drop dramatically.

This is not just a problem in dentistry but in all health departments nationwide about 12 per cent of people do not keep appointments. The nhs can spend huge sums with different systems to remind people so we all pay for their forgetfulness or fine them and put the problem in the hands of those who miss appointments.
Of course occaisionally people have legit excuses but the vast majority is just not valueing a service enough to pick up a phone if you can't make an appointment.