Dentist not passing on info about hosp appointment.

brook2jack

At our local hospitals the patient is sent a letter from the hospital informing them they don't meet the criteria for referral and to contact their dentist if they wish to be re referred or for further treatment. Likewise normally when you make an appointment at a specialist practice you are informed that you will not be seen if you fail two appointments.

Unfortunately it can be very difficult to get a dental patient seen for work in a hospital , especially as many areas have dentists with special interests who do more difficult extractions.

It sounds as if you were referred to a dentist with special interests for the extraction , originally. Unfortunately it is standard NHS practice that if you miss two appointments you will not be seen at that dental practice . This is against a background of 40% of new dental patient appointments are not kept. If you don't turn up the dentist doesn't get paid.

Most NHS practices have notices in the waiting room informing them of the "two strikes " policy as do most PCT websites.

A new dentist looking at your letter may have presumed you would have recieved a standard letter from the hospital re your referral and expecting you to contact the surgery for the next step. This may be difficult because if the specialist dentist will not see you and the hospital won't and your own dentist feels the extraction is difficult they may struggle to find someone to do the work.

The average dentist will have over 3000 patients on their list and a new dentist taking over someones list will not be aware of all the ins and outs of cancelled or missed appointments.

brook2jack

jasper27 wrote: »

Thanks HBS.. I can't submit another form as I'm working now, I'm on minimum wage and get WTC but don't qualify for HC2.

x

If you are on a low wage you should fill out form hc1 which may qualify you for full or partial help with dental ,optical ,prescription costs etc. You can pick up this form at your dentists.

Tenyearstogo

jasper27 wrote: »

Tenyearstogo

Yes I understand that.........as I've said before, the fact is I wasn't informed of this or the fact that I didn't have an appointment pending.. surely they should have let me know? Good customer services? Or am I supposed to wait until my next 12 monthly check up??

You didn't attend first time, maybe you should have let them know?

There is not enough money in the pot for everything. When you didn't attend for the first appointment, it wasted an appointment slot. Someone else could have been seen. The NHS then wastes its time chasing YOU for that second appointment. You then cancelled that, not rearranged it. Did you give enough cancellation time for some one else to be called into that slot? I hope so. Then you want the NHS to chase you again to keep you up to date.

Take some responsibility.

Undervalued

brook2jack wrote: »

This is against a background of 40% of new dental patient appointments are not kept. If you don't turn up the dentist doesn't get paid.

That is a staggering statistic. I don't know how it compares with other NHS medical services?

My old NHS dentist's appointment cards say that a fee will be charged if cancelled with less than 24 hours notice. It is not something I would dream of doing so I've never found out if it is enforceable or simply an empty threat!

Presumably, like airlines, there is an element of overbooking in an attempt to compensate?

brook2jack

NHS dentists in England and Wales cannot charge for missed appointments. They could pre 2006 when the failure rate was much less and has increased year on year and continues to rise. Hence the two strikes and no more appointments.

Dentists in Scotland and NI can charge for missed appointments .

In order to earn a living a nhs dentist will have to see 40 ish patients a day so they cannot afford to carry people who don't turn up.

Tenyearstogo

Undervalued wrote: »

That is a staggering statistic. I don't know how it compares with other NHS medical services?

My old NHS dentist's appointment cards say that a fee will be charged if cancelled with less than 24 hours notice. It is not something I would dream of doing so I've never found out if it is enforceable or simply an empty threat!

Presumably, like airlines, there is an element of overbooking in an attempt to compensate?

I work in an NHS hospital outpatients. On average 20% of our patients fail to turn up. This is despite patients booking their follow up appointments when they leave their first appointment, getting a letter and a then text message reminder two days before. We aren't allowed to overbook in case everyone does turn up and then complains we are running late. If someone doesn't up we have to send them a further appointment.

Undervalued

brook2jack wrote: »

NHS dentists in England and Wales cannot charge for missed appointments. They could pre 2006 when the failure rate was much less and has increased year on year and continues to rise.

I suspect his stock of cards well pre-dated 2006. Everything else in the place looked as though it did!

Undervalued

Tenyearstogo wrote: »

I work in an NHS hospital outpatients. On average 20% of our patients fail to turn up. This is despite patients booking their follow up appointments when they leave their first appointment, getting a letter and a then text message reminder two days before. We aren't allowed to overbook in case everyone does turn up and then complains we are running late. If someone doesn't up we have to send them a further appointment.

Given how late most departments seem to run I imagine an element of "no show" must be factored in. I'm not in any way defending it but, presumably, if every one of your patients turned up every day you would grind to a halt?

Toothsmith

jasper27 wrote: »

I feel really angry about this and have lost my faith in dentists and their receptionists.

Lost your faith?

Your dentist told you you needed the tooth out, and would have had to do a fair bit of form filling to get you into the system to have it out.

In the meantime - because it stopped hurting - you decided it wasn't a priority and missed the appointments. So not much faith in your dentist's opinion there anyway?

Now it's hurting again, and you're mad at everybody else.

In the real world of stretched resources and over-busy state health services, there is simply not enough time to nanny people who attend or miss appointments depending on how they feel on the day.

An apology to the practice and a box of biscuits might have got you further.

Tenyearstogo

Undervalued wrote: »

Given how late most departments seem to run I imagine an element of "no show" must be factored in. I'm not in any way defending it but, presumably, if every one of your patients turned up every day you would grind to a halt?

Not the case at all. It's very rare we run late.