Is NHS Dentistry effectively dead..?

Toothsmith

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/24/people-in-england-face-three-year-waits-for-dentist-appointments

Fron Guardian this morning

Binkie_Huckaback

from the Guardian article above:

Healthwatch England conducted a review of 1,375 people’s experiences shared with its local teams and found that some people had been asked to wait for three years for an NHS dentist appointment, but were told that private care could be available within a week.

Yup, sounds about right..  
and I suspect a lot of dentists are playing the system, as per. 
Furlough on 80% pay is probably more of an attractive option than going into work and having the hassle of PPE equipment, limited space/appointments, drop in income, etc

Imelda Redmond, national director of Healthwatch England, told PA: “New arrangements should include making access to NHS dental services equal and affordable for everyone, regardless of where people live, their income and ethnicity.
Pfft! I'll believe t when it see it..  

brook2jack2

Except furlough was not an option for dentists as dentists are , by and large , self employed . The expenses of running a practice have exploded , eg even simple things like gloves increased twenty fold in price without the income coming in to pay . Even employed dentists were put in urgent care centres to provide aerosol procedures and were not furloughed. In my area we all stayed open all during lockdown seeing patients , but the protocols that we have to abide by mean , even now , we cannot see the number of patients that we could before. 

Most of the dentists in our practice would have been classified as high risk because of age, medical history etc yet we all worked in what is generally acknowledged to be the highest risk profession. 

In England dentists were set the target of seeing 60% of pre covid patients, the BDA estimates that over 50% of dentists will not hit that target. 

Dentistry was in crisis precovid and the extra expense . time and physical and mental difficulties of providing covid era dentistry has intensified this crisis. 

Even pre covid the government only ever provided dentistry for around 50% of the population. The massive decrease in productivity because of covid protocols means even fewer people will be seen on the NHS . 

In addition to this very,very many colleagues are looking to leave the profession early as the stresses have made working life unbearable. 

Many practices have not got the money or suitable surgeries to install the ventilation requirements in every surgery to allow them to do drilling procedures in every room . Many/most practices owners have taken on massive loans to keep the practices going . 

Myself and my staff are exhausted we worked extra days, extra hours to clear backlogs . We are typical of most dental teams we have spent over a year doing microsurgery dressed in heavy duty PPE every day with no end in sight for the onerous precautions we have to take. We have had no claps no cheers , not a problem, we have had virtually no help in keeping the practices going , that is a problem. 

The biggest problem is we train young dentists , who after this year cannot see anyway they want to stay in dentistry let alone NHS dentistry. I can't blame them. 

Binkie_Huckaback

It's been awful for ALL healthcare staff: nurses, doctors, etc. About 4 or 5 million people are waiting for ops now, it's a real mess.

Self employed people certainly do get government grants. I recall a Brighton drag queen getting £200 000+ from the government due to loss of earnings, lol. Hairdressers beauticians etc also got help from the government. 

brook2jack2

The owners of most dental practices are paid via their limited companies and were therefore not entitled to seiss ( self employment grant) .The cut off point for the self employed grant also meant that many associate dentists could not claim at all. Your drag queen could not possibly have claimed that much as the cut off point for earnings was £50,000 a year , earn a penny above that and you got nothing at all, earn below that and you would only get a proportion . 

Binkie_Huckaback

"My" drag queen did indeed get more than £200 000, allocated from the Treasury via the Arts Council..
The Press were all over it like a rash. Google Le Gateau Chocolat if you're interested.

Floss

Binkie_Huckaback said:

...Self employed people certainly do get government grants. I recall a Brighton drag queen getting £200 000+ from the government due to loss of earnings, lol. Hairdressers beauticians etc also got help from the government. 

That (according to the accurate source that is the Daily Mail) was a grant awarded by the Arts Council, and not a self-employed support grant.

Also, why post that "hairdressers beauticians etc also got help from the government" completely out of context of this thread? The majority will have been self employed, and if they applied & were eligible, they would have had support. But they were forced to close. Dentists had to stay open.

kirtondm

Virtually no clinicians in optometry were furloughed. If you had to keep one person on it was someone who could do the clinical stuff. In optometry we have 3 practices and  at the height of the pandemic we furloughed all our non clinical staff bar one receptionist. At the hospital I work most of the non clinical staff were furloughed.
The furlough was caped at £2500 gross per month so I would imagine not many dentists would have been better off!
We saw a hell of a lot more patients face to face than our local GP's!
The reason we are all seeing private patients more is that is the only way to keep the doors open.  the NHS grossly underfunds Optometry and dentistry and because of the NHS people do not really have a grasp of the real cost of healthcare

chatterbox121

It is very difficult finding a dentist that takes on NHS patients in Lancashire.

Torry_Quine

Maybe it's unusual but in the part of Scotland I'm in dentists have signs up for new patients on the NHS.