Dental treatment NHS. Poor practice.??

Toothsmith

One thing I have that really helps in these situations is an intra-oral camera.

If things suddenly go pear-shaped, then I can take pictures of the problem and show them to the patient.

Decay diving towards the nerve, deep cracks running across the bottom of a cavity, all show up well when you can take a picture of them and blow it up on a telly screen.

It takes a bit of extra time, and its a bit of kit not all dentists - particularly lowly associates working on a conveyor belt for a corporate PLC churning out NHS 'care' - have access to. But it does help patients see what the problem is and that I'm not making it up!

justme111

What would help is department of health admitting that NHS dental care can not possible be of superb standards , subsidised and universal and decide what they fund. Even my local garage has a poster saying that work can be cheep , quick or quality but only 2 of those at a time ! That are not going to unfortunately due to politics so uk public is basically lied to and a dentist is at the end point of that lie. If public understood that every time an NHS dentist provides a good care he or she is being penalised for it financially they would be far more appreciative.
To the op - of course impossible to say without seeing it but by your recount what dentist said /done makes perfect sense and I would guess there was no wrongdoing.

ripplyuk

justme111 wrote: »

What would help is department of health admitting that NHS dental care can not possible be of superb standards

I agree. Though I'd change 'superb' to just 'reasonable'. I just wish they'd make it more clear to people that little will be done on the NHS except extractions or a scale/polish, in my area anyway. I've been reading up a lot on this recently and am shocked at what dentists are paid for NHS work. But the dentists seem worried about mentioning that the work can be done privately and a lot of people will just have extractions because they don't realise there is any other option.