Dentist £££

brook2jack

The surgery has no obligation if you are an NHS patient in England or Wales to see you. As I said many , if they are allowed by the PCT/LHB and UDA allowance , will prioritise regular patients . However once a course of NHS treatment in England and Wales is finished the contractual obligation is finished.

This is particularly pertinent at this time of year when many NHS practices have run out or are running out of UDAs so cannot see patients on the NHS at all until the new contract year. Eg http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/10970700.Dentist_halts_free_treatment_as_NHS_funding_runs_out/

You are doing no one any favours , money saving or otherwise, encouraging them to seek treatment on the NHS such as adult orthodontics , which are plainly not available from reading the links provided from a multitude of sources.

None of the forum users who post on dentistry give their names or practice details. Advice is normally backed up by links , where relevant , and quite often ,if you read through , will advise on NHS rights and costs.

However NHS dentistry is a flawed system that cannot provide everything for everybody and it is wrong to tell people it can.

I find it rather sad you can make judgements on the morals and ethics of the dentists who provide private treatment purely because they have made that choice often after many years of working in a very difficult NHS environment .

brook2jack

heuchera wrote: »

Are you trying to suggest my NHS dentist is the only one in the entire country who "goes above and beyond" what's required of them? :rotfl:


And as I say, private dentists also have no obligation to see patients after their treatment has ended.

So totally misleading.

However a private dentist is totally in charge of who they see and when. A dentist treating under the NHS can only see patients until they run out of UDAs. Some have contracts that mean they have to see a certain number of new patients each month so cannot fit in patients who have been seen , say , in the last year. Some have contracts that mean they can only see people in a certain post code.

Some practices, particularly in the London area, have appointments totally controlled by the CCG so cannot offer "regular " patients appointments and can only offer one off courses of treatment.

The argument is so long as any practice in the area has availability it doesn't matter where a patient goes.

There have been multiple trials of new dental contracts because of all these flaws but the problems continue and it looks as though it will be a few more years until anything changes.

Undervalued

brook2jack wrote: »

However NHS dentistry is a flawed system that cannot provide everything for everybody and it is wrong to tell people it can.

I find it rather sad you can make judgements on the morals and ethics of the dentists who provide private treatment purely because they have made that choice often after many years of working in a very difficult NHS environment .

Indeed.

I have found some very helpful information here from Brook and the other regular dentists that post.

I am also fortunate, after a bad patch, to have what appears to be a reasonably good NHS dentist. Long may that continue. However, the information gained here means that I understand the limitations and visit the practice with my eyes open (as well as my mouth obviously).

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

welshdent

To quote anchorman ... Well that escalated quickly.

So firstly if one does not wish to take the word or advice of a random person on a message board ... Why use a message board?

A general dentist is highly unlikely to be able to treat orthodontic problems unless they have done a system like Invisalign and that certainly won't be NHS. You will therefore not be able to get an assessment of NHS suitability from them imho. But from personal experience no orthodontic "practices" have a contract to see adults. The only adults I have been able to get NHS Ortho for are seen at the hospital setting and none have been accepted on appearance grounds. All have been functional issues. Those may be open or cross bites affecting eating and traumatic bites with lower teeth biting against the palate.
I think the statement that braces can be available for a band 3 charge is highly misleading because as stated. Practices don't have adult NHS contracts and hospitals would not charge at all.

And I don't think that a random user of an Internet message board is the arbiter of what is moral or ethical.
The ethical responsibility of the health care professional is to do their best at all times. Funding systems are irrelevant.

FBaby

It's all very well implying that people who want braces are vain and unreasonable, but if you knew the effects that having seriously misaligned teeth can have on the individual's confidence and self esteem, even their career and earnings, you perhaps wouldn't be so dismissive.

As does having too small breasts, too large breasts, droopy breasts, one breast bigger than the other, having a long nose, a too wide nose, a nose with a hump, too large ears. Droopy skin after losing weight, unsightly moles, droopy eye lids and on and on...

I would think at least 50% of people's confidence is affected by some cosmetic defects (or so they see), should we fund it all on the NHS? Or do we accept that if it so bad, sacrifices can be made to pay for treatment?