One-off fuel allowance payment

highrisklowreturn

LOL, even I think it was mildly inappropriate, tho' the sentiment was in the right place. One wonders how humanity survived millions of years since time began without the dole, NHS, benefits top-ups, gay rights etc. You arn't allowed an opinion today if it goes against the trend. The fact that the country is broke, can't educate its kids, has astronomical crime rates, no control of its borders, lost its sovereignty is all immaterial.

Now let's all sit back and be good consumers and watch the x-factor like we're told.

brook2jack

duchesspink1 wrote: »

Happymumandwife, where do you live in NI? I'm asking as I worked in dentistry here for the last 22 years and know of at least 15 dental practices that are accepting NHS patients. The NHS isn't dependant on you being on benefits and certainly you need to report any practices that have said they'll only offer you nhs treatment if you're on a benefit as that is illegal for them to do so.


h

This is wrong it is not illegal. Many practices struggle to to provide nhs treatment and remain financially viable. They choose to limit their nhs provision but try to target it to the people who can least afford private dentistry. Therefore many , many practices only offer nhs dentistry to people exempt from charges ie children and exempt patients. It is their way of providing some service to the most vulnerable.

It is a situation that has occurred more in recent times because of the vastly increased costs of running a practice none of which has been covered by nhs fees.

Teerah

duchesspink1 wrote: »

Happymumandwife, where do you live in NI? I'm asking as I worked in dentistry here for the last 22 years and know of at least 15 dental practices that are accepting NHS patients. The NHS isn't dependant on you being on benefits and certainly you need to report any practices that have said they'll only offer you nhs treatment if you're on a benefit as that is illegal for them to do so.

As someone who has supposedly worked in dentistry here for over 20 years you should know better than to spout such nonsense. You cannot accept a patient under the NHS and then not offer them the full range of health service treatments available but you are perfectly entitled to decide whether or not to accept paying NHS patients in the first place.

There are big changes ahead in health service dentistry in this country which at current proposals make the much maligned UDA system across the water look good! My advice would be to find a good dentist and budget for dentistry as you would any other necessity.

jeffer

NAR wrote: »

Can't understand cancer patients being singled out to receive this either. Treatment for various cancers doesn't leave you housebound and needing to use extra fuel, but having, say, two broken legs will! Not very well thought through IMHO.

You are badly misinformed. If you had ever been, or lived with anyone, undergoing chemotherapy/radiotherapy you would know how debilitating these treatments are. They KNOCK YOU OUT so you are fit for nothing. All you can do is sit in the house. Not only that but you feel the cold much morethan normal.

brook2jack

You are wrong on several counts, a dentist contract has always allowed them to the right to choose which nhs patients they see. They are not employed by the nhs they subcontract some of the work they do. They have the right to target nhs as they wish .

An associate may gross 14k a month which is well above the average gross but as the average associates overheads are 72% of gross before tax in NI what they end up earning before tax is over two thirds less. As the average spend per head of population in NHS dentistry is £32 per course of treatment that means over four hundred complete courses of treatment on the nhs every month to earn this if they had no time off ever to attend the courses they must to stay registered as a dentist or have some holidays. This is working at the rate of over 40 patients a day , very hard work. Many newspapers make the same mistake as you confusing what a dentist turns over with what they take home.


The average dentist with tuition fees will graduate with £80,000 debt.

I personally know of many colleagues who have gone bankrupt recently, a few who have committed suicide and many who just want to leave dentistry.

As to dentists not accepting udas the welsh and English didn't it was forced on them because costs needed to be cut. Just as dentists in Eire didn't accept the virtual abolition of state funded dentistry overnight that the financial crisis dictated.

You don't know a poor dentist? Well I'm a liar when I tell you of a friend who runs his thee man nhs practice on which he has a mortgage and enormous loans for equipment. Last year he earnt less than £17,000. As dental inflation is much higher this year and nhs budgets have not increased for years this year he will earn even less. He cant sell his practice and clear his debts as no one wants to buy it.

You may be bitter ,understandably as you have lost your job ,if it was in dentistry then you must realise it was due to financial pressure but you seriously misunderstand dental contracts and running a viable nhs practice. But most particularly please correct the misinformation you are giving people wrongly telling them it is illegal to only see exempt patients when it is not. Here is a link with correct advice http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/your_family/health/faq_index_health/faq_health_finding_an_nhs_dentist.htm

NAR

jeffer wrote: »

You are badly misinformed. If you had ever been, or lived with anyone, undergoing chemotherapy/radiotherapy you would know how debilitating these treatments are. They KNOCK YOU OUT so you are fit for nothing. All you can do is sit in the house. Not only that but you feel the cold much morethan normal.

No I'm not misinformed and am well aware of side effects of cancer (my father died from it). You are missing my point - a lot of others deserve the payment as well, which is why I said it was not very well thought out!

Golden_Anemone

I tend to agree with NAR. A close friend has Multiple Sclerosis and is wheel chair dependent and almost completely housebound. Even in warm weather her extremities - feet and hands - get icy cold. I sit with her feet in my lap rubbing some warmth into them when visiting her. Her heat is on for up to 16 hours a day and where we live we depend on oil - I just couldn't afford her heating bills and I work full time.

It's not that people with cancer don't deserve extra help - of course they do, but some other people need that help just as much and some will even need it more.

duchesspink1

brook2jack wrote: »

You are wrong on several counts, a dentist contract has always allowed them to the right to choose which nhs patients they see. They are not employed by the nhs they subcontract some of the work they do. They have the right to target nhs as they wish . I've never said they were employed by the NHS, I said they were using an NHS list number which means they must offer NHS treatments to their patients. Unless things have changed wildly since I last worked in dentistry in NI, then I can't see how you can pick and choose your NHS patients

An associate may gross 14k a month which is well above the average gross but as the average associates overheads are 72% of gross before tax in NI what they end up earning before tax is over two thirds less. I paid the salaries thanks so i do know how they are paid. These dentists were on 50% contracts where they took 50% of gross minus lab bills and bad debts. The 14K was what the paycheque was made out for. As the average spend per head of population in NHS dentistry is £32 per course of treatment that means over four hundred complete courses of treatment on the nhs every month to earn this if they had no time off ever to attend the courses they must to stay registered as a dentist or have some holidays. This is working at the rate of over 40 patients a day , very hard work. Many newspapers make the same mistake as you confusing what a dentist turns over with what they take home. I'm not taking my info from newspapers, I've been paying associate salaries for years so know exactly how much can be earned. I think the least i've ever paid out to a full time associate is £4k in one month.


The average dentist with tuition fees will graduate with £80,000 debt.

I personally know of many colleagues who have gone bankrupt recently, a few who have committed suicide and many who just want to leave dentistry. I also know many who want to and have left dentistry but please don't tell me that its because of the NHS system. If they have gone bankrupt then they've not been running their business appropriately. NHS dentistry is thriving in this recession and if there was no money to be made in NHS practices, then there wouldn't be so many new ones opening.

As to dentists not accepting udas the welsh and English didn't it was forced on them because costs needed to be cut. Just as dentists in Eire didn't accept the virtual abolition of state funded dentistry overnight that the financial crisis dictated. I believe state funded dentistry is back in the republic again. I've a friend who has recently moved back to work in dublin from the UK as a dentist and is doing very well purely because the medical card has been reinstated

You don't know a poor dentist? Well I'm a liar when I tell you of a friend who runs his thee man nhs practice on which he has a mortgage and enormous loans for equipment. Last year he earnt less than £17,000. As dental inflation is much higher this year and nhs budgets have not increased for years this year he will earn even less. He cant sell his practice and clear his debts as no one wants to buy it. There is a large dental corporate trying to break into Ireland/NI at the minute, perhaps if he holds out, then he might be able to sell to them. All practices have had to cut their cloth when it came to price increases, but most practices upsell their private and cosmetic treatment to make up for these shortfalls, many are branching out into facial aesthetics also. Perhaps he should consider providing private treatment or offering a private payment scheme to encourage more private patients into his practice.

You may be bitter ,understandably as you have lost your job ,if it was in dentistry then you must realise it was due to financial pressure but you seriously misunderstand dental contracts and running a viable nhs practice. But most particularly please correct the misinformation you are giving people wrongly telling them it is illegal to only see exempt patients when it is not. Here is a link with correct advice http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/your_family/health/faq_index_health/faq_health_finding_an_nhs_dentist.htm

I gave up my job in dentistry to relocate so didn't lose my job as you think. I'm not bitter at all as i'm going back to working in dentistry in the new year. I've run very viable NHS practices and like I said in a previous post, My NHS practice shored up the private one as once the recession started, the phonecalls didnt stop for new patients wishing to register. In the Private practice, you have to market your business and hope that people will wish to come to spend their money with you. I've offered to help the poster looking for an nhs practice in her area and i've got a few practices that can and will accept her family as patients. I will contact her by pm to inform her of whom is taking on as I don't think its allowable to post them on here.

Def going to stop hijacking this thread and let it get back to the fuel payments issue as was originally posted

brook2jack

duchesspink1 wrote: »

I gave up my job in dentistry to relocate so didn't lose my job as you think. I'm not bitter at all as i'm going back to working in dentistry in the new year. I've run very viable NHS practices and like I said in a previous post, My NHS practice shored up the private one as once the recession started, the phonecalls didnt stop for new patients wishing to register. In the Private practice, you have to market your business and hope that people will wish to come to spend their money with you. I've offered to help the poster looking for an nhs practice in her area and i've got a few practices that can and will accept her family as patients. I will contact her by pm to inform her of whom is taking on as I don't think its allowable to post them on here.

D

Well you have to forgive my confusion as you had previously posted on another thread

Quote:


"I lost a job i'd been in for 7 years. I didn't get a lump sum payment or anything like it. I was called to a meeting, told they were cutting staff and unceremoniously dumped onto garden leave for the rest of the month. On that payday I received my months wage and nothing more.

i had my bills to pay as normal and that was that. In order to sell anything, you need to be able to purchase it in the first instance, bloody hard when there is nothing left out of a months pay to do so

I have been on job seekers for a few months, not that its any of your business, but I do look for work, do sell stuff on ebay but i'm not in any position to start a business of my own. "


Also your quotes on how much an associate was paid on the nhs in one month £14,000 was quoted. That equates to roughly £42,000 grossed in that one month or over 1300 courses of treatment finished. Thats 330 entire courses of treatment in a week eg check up fillings dentures crowns scaling etc or 66 people each and every day recieving an entire course of nhs treatment from one person... not very realistic. even less realistic when the governments own figures for dentists income for associates indicates this dentist earned almost three times the average earnings for an associate dentist in Northern Ireland in the year 2009 to 2010 , the most recent figures. Over 70% of dentists are associates.

You are mistaken in many other things as well eg " I believe state funded dentistry is back in the republic again. I've a friend who has recently moved back to work in dublin from the UK as a dentist and is doing very well purely because the medical card has been reinstated"

The medical card treatment budget has been slashed to pre 2008 levels but with many more people holding cards. The offshoot of this is that only two fillings a year are allowed as emergency treatment and the amount spent on dentistry has been drastically cut.the last meeting I went to a month ago things were looking dire in the South most particularly for patients who cannot afford private prices and for older children . quote from newspapers in last few weeks "Subsidised dental care under PRSI was removed in January 2010 and currently those paying PRSI only receive a subsidised annual oral examination. They must now pay the full rate for other treatments such as fillings, extractions and scaling and polishing.

In addition, the medical card dental scheme was cut back two years ago and currently only covers emergency dental treatment.

The Irish Dental Association (IDA) says the removal of State cover for many dental treatments has led to patients leaving tooth decay and gum disease untreated." and "The Associaiton says the recession, coupled with the loss in earnings from State schemes, has hit dentistry hard in recent years.

Mr Hourihan said it was estimated that around 1,000 staff had been let go from dental practices in the past 12 to 18 months and many young associate dentists were emigrating.

He said a number of dental practices, reckoned to be in double figures, had closed down."

http://www.dentist.ie/resources/news/showarticle.jsp?id=1164 http://www.dentist.ie/resources/news/showarticle.jsp?id=1165


Again you said
" I said they were using an NHS list number which means they must offer NHS treatments to their patients. Unless things have changed wildly since I last worked in dentistry in NI, then I can't see how you can pick and choose your NHS patients"

try reading this link below the relevant part is "Some dentists do not provide NHS treatment, or only provide treatment to certain groups of people, for example children, or people getting benefits or tax credits.
Not all dentists who provide NHS treatment have to take you on as an NHS patient. If they are unable to take you on, they should tell you that you can go to another dentist."

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/your_family/health/faq_index_health/faq_health_finding_an_nhs_dentist.htm

You may also be unaware that latest figures indicate in NI in the year 2009 to 2010 NHS dentists profits dropped by over 8% and that has been a trend over the last few years . 2010 to 2011 the drop is predicted to be 10%.

If NHS practice was so profitable then why over the last few years has the amount of NHS dentistry being provided dropped so dramatically? Why are dentists going into less profitable private dentistry? The system is broken , there is not the money to fix it and very many colleagues would be very upset when you accuse them of lying , bad business practice,earning amounts they can't dream of when struggling to keep a practice mostly NHS. Such misinformation plays into government hands when they make NHS practice more and more difficult whilst placing all the blame on dentists.

jeffer

NAR wrote: »

No I'm not misinformed and am well aware of side effects of cancer (my father died from it). You are missing my point - a lot of others deserve the payment as well, which is why I said it was not very well thought out!

But you said in your post that 'treatment for cancer doesn't leave you house-bound and requiring extra fuel'.

I'm saying: Yes it does.