How to find dental hygienist service?

iudtuvm

Hi MoneySavers,

I have little to no experience of dental services and I've made enquiries at NHS dentist services only to be told their list was full or that they were not able to give me advice on how to go about looking for quality private services.

So my question is, where do I start? Do hygienists work independently or only through dental surgeries? What considerations should I make in looking for a dental hygienist e.g. if I was looking for plastic surgery, other than cost, I would need to know the surgeon's track record etc to reduce my chances of winding up dead on his table. Can dental hygienists be rogues e.g. using poor quality cleaning chemicals etc How can I assess the quality of their work etc.

It's high time I took my tooth health seriously and I dont mind paying a reasonable amount for good quality preventative care as this would save me money in the long run.

h-e-l-p

welshdent

Just a quick message as I am not at home - you can not access a hygiene service per se as you may think you can. You need to e referred with a treatment plan from a dentist. Most hygienists work within an established dental practice. As for a good job and materials - well I don't think there is much they can be slack on! They either clean your teeth thoroughly as per prescription or thy don't

Toothsmith

I think the first thing you need to find is a decent dentist.

Follow the tips in my sig line.

hethmar

If you have used NHS previously you may be surprised at a private practice hygenist. Previously on the NHS Id had a quick whip round lasting perhaps 10 minutes. I was in the chair 30 minutes at the private dentists. And you get a lot of advice and so on.

iudtuvm

welshdent wrote: »

Just a quick message as I am not at home - you can not access a hygiene service per se as you may think you can. You need to e referred with a treatment plan from a dentist. Most hygienists work within an established dental practice. As for a good job and materials - well I don't think there is much they can be slack on! They either clean your teeth thoroughly as per prescription or thy don't

Now I know that hygiensts work within dental practices, thank you.

Toothsmith wrote: »

I think the first thing you need to find is a decent dentist.

Follow the tips in my sig line.

I dont actually know anyone who uses private dental care (reason I resorted to requesting advice here) so, unfortunately, I would be stuck at step one...

hethmar wrote: »

If you have used NHS previously you may be surprised at a private practice hygenist. Previously on the NHS Id had a quick whip round lasting perhaps 10 minutes. I was in the chair 30 minutes at the private dentists. And you get a lot of advice and so on.

If private dental care is better quality than NHS, that is reassuring. Rightly or wrongly, the opposite is assumed by me in regards to medical care.

Toothsmith

iudtuvm wrote: »

I dont actually know anyone who uses private dental care (reason I resorted to requesting advice here) so, unfortunately, I would be stuck at step one...

Do you know the dental arrangements of every single aquaintance you have?

An awful lot of 'ordinary' people go to private dentists. The vast majority of any private dentist's patients are just ordinary people. I would be very surprised if you really didn't have any contact with anybody who did. Just because you don't know anybody who owns a Porsche, doesn't mean you don't know somebody who sees a private dentist!

But that aside - I didn't say find a private dentist, I said find a decent one.

There aren't that many dentists who do no NHS work at all - and there are hardly any dentists that don't do any private work. Most dental practices are, to one degree or another, a bit of a mix.

So - Step one still applies. Ask friends, family, work colleagues, neighbours, people on the bus......... who do they go to, and would they recommend them. Build a list, see which names crop up as the most recommended and off you go.

Toothsmith

iudtuvm wrote: »

If private dental care is better quality than NHS, that is reassuring. Rightly or wrongly, the opposite is assumed by me in regards to medical care.

It's not quite as simple as that.

Dentistry is a very practical service. The difference is in how well someone actually DOES things, as well as what they know.

Now if the dentist who charges more money does so in order to spend enough time on a job to do it well - then that is a good private dentist and a service worth paying for.

If, despite paying more, you're still in a grotty waiting room, with loads of people, and are seen late all the time, and an appointment hardly seems to last any time at all - yet the dentist has a nice new Ferrari in the car park - then maybe you should ask why you're paying the extra!

There are some very good NHS dentists still out there - it's just that they are now in a system that is completely stacked against them!

In general, you are more likely to find a decent dentist if you go private than if you restrict yourself to the NHS - but you still have to keep your whits about you all the same!



Oh - and I agree with you to an extent about NHS medical services. Personally I do have private medical insurance. However, if I ever use it, I would choose to go to the private wing of my local NHS hospital where there are medical staff and critical care services on site and available 24/7 rather than the glorified hotels that pass for private hospitals where your lucky if there's a Dr of any sort on site after 3:30 in the afternoon, and any emergency would require an ambulance trip to the nearest NHS A&E!

iudtuvm

Toothsmith wrote: »

Do you know the dental arrangements of every single aquaintance you have?

An awful lot of 'ordinary' people go to private dentists. The vast majority of any private dentist's patients are just ordinary people. I would be very surprised if you really didn't have any contact with anybody who did. Just because you don't know anybody who owns a Porsche, doesn't mean you don't know somebody who sees a private dentist!

But that aside - I didn't say find a private dentist, I said find a decent one.

There aren't that many dentists who do no NHS work at all - and there are hardly any dentists that don't do any private work. Most dental practices are, to one degree or another, a bit of a mix.

So - Step one still applies. Ask friends, family, work colleagues, neighbours, people on the bus......... who do they go to, and would they recommend them. Build a list, see which names crop up as the most recommended and off you go.

The point I was intending to make is that friends/family etc were my first port of call and I got nowhere in terms of getting an NHS dentist or an alternative they could recommend (i.e. a private service OR people who provide a private service)

Having exhausted that avenue, I then came to a site that I usually associate with constructive information in order to get ideas that would help me move forward with my quest

EDIT we could go down the route of 'I need to find new friends/family etc' , but for now, let me see what my current query, which has already taken me a few steps forward from the direct answers as well as other stuff it gave me to think about, yields