Any qualified dentists in the house?

Mr_Singleton

I normally have a once yearly half hour appointment with the hygienist at my local NHS dentist.

I'm currently away from home so have booked in at a private dentist (they won't do NHS) for my check up and my yearly hygienist appointment.

Was suprised to see that they've booked me a 1.5hr hygienist appointment. Its a 1hr booking and then an additional 1\2 hr appointment a few days later.

SO is my normal half hour NHS hygienist appointment not enough or is this private dentist taking the pee? They're charging £110/hr. Its not the money but would be annoyed if I was being taken for a ride. They are part of a national chain of fairly well known dentists.

Thanks

Toothsmith

The hour appt might well be an initial examination with the dentist, followed by a hygienist appointment on that separate day.

Although it is allowed now for a patient to go directly to a hygienist (the rules there changed a few months ago), from a legal point of view many dentists, and hygienists, don't like working that way.

Hygienists usually work on the direction of a dentist. They are not taught much in the way of diagnostic methods - although many experienced ones can generally spot things pretty well! So if a patient just attends a hygienist, and some dental condition is missed, then sometimes the patient thinks the hygienist should have noticed this, and with the way the legal system works in this country, that could start a long and worrying action against the hygienist, even if they would ultimately be cleared!

So this practice probably still do things the usual way whereby you are having a proper thorough new-patient examination to make sure everything is all right, followed by your hygienist visit.

Once this is done, then I'm sure the practice might well be happy for you to go back to your yearly hygienist appointments with basic check-ups every so often.