NHS dentist fobbing me off, or has he got a point?

brook2jack

I think you'll find Welshdent does not accept new patients as his boss would rapidly go bust at the expense of providing instruments to do work on the NHS.

Just the time taken to do a good root treatment on a molar tooth involves more expense than the total NHS fee and thats without buying the instruments,disposables.

At £15,000 for a microscope alone plus the cost of Welshdents postgraduate qualification Welshdent will have to complete the whole treatment including root filling on almost 800 patients before he starts to earn anything just to recoup these costs. I suspect he is looking for his way out of the NHS.

murphydog999

Well, just a quick update in case anyone is interested. I have spoken at length to the very helpful public dental health consultant of my local PCT.

He's sent me documents to back up the 'yes, you are entitled' facts, but advised me to go back to the practice with these and speak nicely saying that I know my rights. Whilst I am all for standing up for myself, I'd rather go somewhere else after this treatment - the trust is gone, if you know what I mean - so he gave me other surgeries in the area taking NHS.

Well, 3 surgeries later, and the answer is the same, yes they do take NHS, but not until february, which is not much use to me.

A novel idea is a practice that gets you in quicker (next week), but neither as NHS or private! Higher charges than NHS, but not as high as private. A canny approach, that! I've had no choice but to go down this route.

I was also not aware of the depth of this problem - root canal work seems to be at the top of it - the PCT guy sent me an NHS link to huge numbers of people complaining about being refused treatments and being fobbed off. A bit of a rhetorical question but if they know the situation is so bad why don't they do something about it?????

What I also wasn't aware of was the old system of having to register in your area, or keep to the same dentist, no longer applies. That's good.

Toothsmith

murphydog999 wrote: »

A novel idea is a practice that gets you in quicker (next week), but neither as NHS or private! Higher charges than NHS, but not as high as private. A canny approach, that! I've had no choice but to go down this route.

I would be interested in that link if you could post or PM it to me.

As for ypur 'idea' - have you investigated private practices in your area?

You tend to see high-end prices quoted in newspaper reports - but not all practices are at this level.

A high - end city centre 'cosmetic' practice will be top-dollar - but dental practices attract patients from their local area, so you will generally find pretty realistic prices if you look around.

I compare it to resturants. The choice isn't either McDonalds '99p' range or Savoy Grill - there is a whole range in between. It' just if you aren't NHS, you are private (Although some call themselves 'independent' for this reason.)

But - Dental practices cost a similar amount to run. Private ones a bit more than an NHS one generally, but not by that much.

So - to EARN a similar amount, in order to keep the place going, NHS dentists need a base of thousands of patients in order to get the throughput to earn the money.

Private places need less patients, as they charge more per visit, and so patients get more time, and can generally get in much more quickly.

So - if it's say 10 weeks before you can get an appointment with an NHS place - but ideally you would like to be seen within a week, then the place you are looking for will have 10x less patients than an NHS pratice, and so to cover their overheads, they will need to charge about 10x more!

If you can accept a place that can get you in with a 2 week wait, then you'd probably find a place at about 5x more!

This is a bit over-simplistic, but do you see what I mean?

The practice has to cover it's running costs, and that is a function of the price it charges and the number of people it sees.

murphydog999

Toothsmith wrote: »

I would be interested in that link if you could post or PM it to me.
As for your 'idea' - have you investigated private practices in your area?

It's not my idea, it's a practice thats doing exactly that. I've been quoted between £80-£180 for root canal,and £47-79 for fillings. Do you want me to PM you the practice name?

I looked at the prices of the places the original dentist referred me to, that put me off! I understand what you are saying re. pricing, but it really does grate when it should be treatment available to NHS paying patients.

Toothsmith

No - the link the PCT guy gave you to a site where lots of people are complaining about this.

I'm interested to know what site it is.

welshdent

brook2jack wrote: »

I think you'll find Welshdent does not accept new patients as his boss would rapidly go bust at the expense of providing instruments to do work on the NHS.

Just the time taken to do a good root treatment on a molar tooth involves more expense than the total NHS fee and thats without buying the instruments,disposables.

At £15,000 for a microscope alone plus the cost of Welshdents postgraduate qualification Welshdent will have to complete the whole treatment including root filling on almost 800 patients before he starts to earn anything just to recoup these costs. I suspect he is looking for his way out of the NHS.

I am indeed!! I have to be a little patient for now though.

murphydog999

Toothsmith wrote: »

No - the link the PCT guy gave you to a site where lots of people are complaining about this.

I'm interested to know what site it is.

Ahh..

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/root-canal-treatment/pages/introduction.aspx

welshdent

From my perspective what winds me up is when someone states they are not capable of doing the treatment on the NHS but if you pay privately they magically become able to do it. That understandably is unfair to the patient and unfair to the likes of me who do feel capable of doing it.
What i do NOT have a problem with is when a dentist does not feel competent full stop to do the procedure. The only person who can judge what they are and are not able to do is them. Not a PCT, not a consultant. I say that because we have to take responsibility for the work we provide and the old had a bash at it but didnt think I could do it excuse simply does not wash when things occaisonally go wrong. We SHOULD have a system in place where the NHS has outlets in place to manage these instances but sadly we do not and the people that suffer are the patients and the well meaning practitioners.

havaska

mda99das wrote: »

murphydog, how much do you want to save the tooth?
On the NHS they will use handfiles to clean out the system. There is no way that you can use rotary files (machine which gives a better level of cleaning) on the pathetic funding the NHS supplies. In fact the 3 funding points won't even cover the cost of the files.
Its totally up to you, the end result on the x-ray may look good, but who knows how well it has been disinfected from the inside. There is no way you can do that with handfiles and a bit of hypochlorite.

That's not true - the practice I work at uses rotary files on the NHS.

1jim

I think a lot of nhs dentists are starting to try this in one way or another

My practice has only one dentist left that offers nhs dentistry, all others have gone private. My dentist still offers nhs dentistry for now but you can see things starting to creep in.... Until last year they did not have a hygienist, the dentist did all own work of this type. I normally have a scale of my teeth (or more accurately one tooth as this tooth gets plaque build up) as part of the check up, never been mentioned as an issue before just done yearly. Until last year that is, check up under nhs as normal, now the same scale should be done by the hygienist due to gum disease and that will be £50 please as she only works privately...as it turns out she only works one day a week and I couldn't make it, I investigated it a bit more and called the dentist back who reluctantly agreed that this should be covered under nhs treatment if needed, went back and all done.... But it seems to me that this is where there is a breakdown in the therapeutic relationship where I can no longer unequivocally trust the dentists opinion/reccomemdations. This I can see will only get worse, and soon spread to GP's as well when they take on the role of PCT's