Toothache but no dentisit....

BFG_2

kevinbev wrote:

One other thing though is if the NHS provide all the training for dentists then when they qualify they should be obliged to provide NHS treatment for at least 10 years before they go fully private.

With all due respect - utter tosh!!!

Toothsmith

kevinbev wrote:

One other thing though is if the NHS provide all the training for dentists then when they qualify they should be obliged to provide NHS treatment for at least 10 years before they go fully private.

The NHS DON'T provide training for dentists. It comes out of the education budget!

Whilst a dentist is training, the NHS gets all the work they do on patients for free.

Why should dentists alone have to do 'national service' after qualifying? Should we make lawyers do only legal aid work? English grads only work in libraries? History grads forced to do 10 years in a museum? Media studies students only.....???? (How does a media studies student 'pay back' their training costs?)

Dentists, like everybody else, pay taxes. If a dentist goes private, and then earns all the money you seem to think we do, then we will have huge tax bills. More so than when we were on the NHS! Therefore, we ARE paying back our training costs, and at a faster rate than before. (Actually, over my career, I've paid for nearly 4 other dentists to be trained, more if you take into account my employer NI & tax contributions.) When I was NHS, I employed 3 staff, now private, I employ 9 and have personally paid for the training of 3 of them, as well as the training of 2 others who have since moved on. Isn't that a contribution to society?

Could someone please tell me how society is repaid by sticking with a system that encourages the provision of cut-price, lowest quality possible, dentistry?

Please Kevinbev, use a bit more thought than the tabloid journalists that come up with these mad notions.

Toothsmith

kevinbev wrote:

If you are not registered with a dentist and need emergency treatment then try the NHS dental walk in centres. Should be able to find on the NHS web site http://www.nhs.uk/England/Dentists/Default.aspx

An interesting statistic.

In 2001, the average cost of a COURSE OF TREATMENT (i.e. from a single visit for a check up, to multi-visits for a longer course of treatment) at an ordinary 'NHS high street dental practice' was about £37.

The average cost OF A SINGLE VISIT to a government run NHS 'access centre' (ie, just to be seen, and given a prescription, and told to find a dentist to do the treatment) was about £220.

Like the thing about the foreign dentists, 'Access centres' were set up to try and scare dentists into staying in the NHS. They are now costing us taxpayers millions to keep running, and they don't do much in the way of dental treatment. They are basically very expensive A&E departments for dentistry.

kevinbev

Apologies on the training side then, it appears I have been misinformed although it came from someone who works within the NHS. However myself and others do feel particularly aggrieved at some of the extortionate rates that dentists are charging of late. I needed some emergency treatment a few weeks ago and as I had not been to see my registered dentist for nearly 15 months they had struck me off. I could go back on their books but would have to pay a consultancy fee of nearly £50 on top of the treatment I was going to receive. I declined so tried looking for a dentist that gave NHS treatment in my area. The nearest one that was currently offering this was just over 20 miles away but they had a waiting list of over 3000. Fortunately I managed to use one of the Dental Access Centres.

Joe_Bloggs

It is great when toothsmith can chip in to these discussions and put forward a powerful argument. Not enough Dentists and GPs are being trained. Dentists have to pay for their surgery, property, equipment and staff. The negotiations regarding the NHS contract have been a disaster. Am i wrong ?

My teeth were mined for profit by a senior dentist, and some junior members, who owned numerous surgeries. The senior dentist is now struck off. In those days the NHS dentist could only make money by filling cavities that they had allegedly created on the previous visit with the use of the sharp pointed probe. Are these days likely to come back or are they still a factor today.

Is there a better way of repairing a tooth with a problem/infection other than replacing the defective material with something that will require re-filling in a few years time and prevents a tooth from healing itself.
Where is 21st century dentistry given the advancements in medical knowledge ?
J_B.

Teerah

Joe_Bloggs wrote:

Is there a better way of repairing a tooth with a problem/infection other than replacing the defective material with something that will require re-filling in a few years time and prevents a tooth from healing itself.
Where is 21st century dentistry given the advancements in medical knowledge ?
J_B.

There have been new advanced techniques developed to combat decay using ozone but this is private only. However, it seems to be completely painfree, no injections even and no need for fillings which always have the possibility of failure. High success rates too

jaxxy00

I had my NHS dentist check up (for myself and 2 children) last week and was told we had a differetn dentist now as the lady had left to work privately and we now had a man. The receptionist was explaining on the phone how a lot of the dentists seem to be moving to private work now as they get paid £20ish for a checkup compared to £5ish from the NHS (they were her quoted figures). I live in the Norfolk area, so what difference if any that makes to prices i dont know. How she put it was that they only have to do half the hours and they earn double the money (which makes sense using those figures). So when you think about it you cant blame them for going private even though it leaves a shortage of NHS dentist which im thankful of myself and use. In my opinion you can only blame the government for not paying the dentists enough in the first place to keep them working for the NHS. This is just my opinion though based on what ive been told and my experience, whether right or wrong.

Teerah

IvanOpinion wrote:

Toothsmith


I don't understand why dentists calim that the NHS is not lucrative - obviously private is much more lucrative but a very high standard of living can be achieved frm the NHS.

Ivan

Ivan, I am an NHS dentist in northern ireland and I disagree. A very high standard of living can be achieved only to the detriment of patient care and quality dentistry. It cant possibly work both ways. Something has to give and I settle for a much lower income than my peers so that I can feel happy with the quality of work I provide and provide my patients with the care and attention that they need. Consequently a lot of my nervous patients tell their nervous friends or family to attend me also and I know this is because I spend the time with them to allay their fears and work through their phobias with them. However, I do not know how long I can maintain this level of care at the current remuneration. I too have bills and mortgage to pay and it p***es me off when people automatically assume that just because you are a dentist you must be rolling in it and just because you work in the NHS your work is crap and your care even worse.

Rant over

jaxxy00

Teerah its nice to hear that there are still people out there that care more for others wellbeing than how much they are earning. Shame you werent in my area as my Mum and my partner would love to get their teeth sorted out but they are so petrified of the dentist. At the end of the day though, as you say, you still have bills to pay and may not be able to continue much longer as you do.
By the way how often are you supposed to have a check up as someone mentioned something about 6 months but when we had our checkups, as everything was ok they booked another checkup appointment for 1 years time?

Teerah

Hi jaxxy00,
I dont generally recommend the same checkup intervals for all my patients. I would recommend intervals of up to a year for patients with good oral hygiene, very low rate of fillings or problems and low risk of other intra oral conditions. And conversely for patients with gum problems, high decay rate or other conditions perhaps as often as three months until things stabilise.