Nhs dental nightmare !!

Likkleangel · 5 August 2018 at 9:17PM

Any advice appreciated. I recently changed nhs dentists and the new dentist tells me there’s all sorts of problems with my teeth mainly due to previous dentist.
One in particular is a crown and root canal. The new dentist tells me it hasn’t been done properly but was too complicated for him to re-do , that he believed it had a massive decay and wanted to refer me right away to a private specialist. He Didn’t give me any other options. I told him I couldn’t afford it so he said only other option was to take it out. I rang the nhs dental helpline who said he can’t just say he can’t do it and that has to refer me to an nhs hospital and shouldn’t be only telling me to go private. I say this to the dentist who then tells me there’s a long waiting list and the hospital would only take it out.
In the meantime I contact my previous dentist and complain about root canal not being done properly etc.., he offers to pay for me to see private dental specialist.
Long story short I saw the specialist yesterday who after messing around with my tooth then cuts off the crown and drills into the root canal to look for said decay only to tell me there is no decay ! ( so I feel like it’s been for nothing ) but also tells me to re- do the canal may not work at next appt so he may have to take the tooth out

I have no faith in dentists anymore and I am currently left with no crown and a temporary filling

Toothsmith · 5 August 2018 at 11:14PM

General rule of thumb - don't trust any dentist who tells you a previous dentist was rubbish. It is completely unprofessional.

Previous things can look 'less than ideal' because they were really hard to do in the first place. And you can't tell that until you've actually tried to do it yourself!

I don't know what problems that particular tooth was causing you, but I feel your original dentist acted above & beyond the call of duty paying for you to see a specialist. The fact that even a specialist couldn't get a better result proves it was extremely difficult. (I'm not sure it would be 'decay' the specialist was looking for - maybe an extra root canal, or trying to get a bit further down one of the canals that looked short on the x-ray?)

The person not covering themselves in glory here,to me, is your new dentist. Why did you leave the original one?

Undervalued · 6 August 2018 at 1:05PM

Toothsmith wrote: »

General rule of thumb - don't trust any dentist who tells you a previous dentist was rubbish. It is completely unprofessional.

Previous things can look 'less than ideal' because they were really hard to do in the first place. And you can't tell that until you've actually tried to do it yourself!

If you are saying that, technically, dentist 2 could not tell that dentist 1 had done a bad job then fair enough.

However, if he could be reasonably certain that dentist 1 had messed up then surely it is his duty, as a professional person, to tell the patient?

To me, "completely unprofessional" would be to cover up another dentist's poor workmanship because he is "a mate" or "in the trade"!

Toothsmith · 6 August 2018 at 3:50PM

I'd agree with that.

But on a first visit there is no way of knowing why a mouth you see before you is in the state that it is in. Just whistling through your teeth and saying "You've had a right cowboy in here" like a dodgy railway arches mechanic is of no help to anything.

I'm not saying that happened with the OP - but there are a few things with the original post that do not quite make sense to me and I don't think the OP has quite relayed accurately everything that he has been told. So I can't draw any firm conclusions from it.

If I had a patient come to me and things didn't seem quite right, the first thing I would do would be to contact the last dentist to see what had been going on from their point of view. What difficulties had been encountered and what had been told to that patient, and even when that patient last attended and how reliable they usually were. It's amazing how different what the patient tells you and what the last dentist's version is sometimes!

If something does seem amis with the way the last dentist has been treating that patient, then there are plenty of ways you can guide the patient to that conclusion without having to say "You've had a right dodgy one in there"

That might have been the case with the OP too - it might have been that the new dentist didn't say everything was old dentist's fault, but did check on things and then just allowed the OP to form this opinion by just stating the facts of what was going on.

My reading of the original post though, is that the original dentist seemed to know better than the new dentist, or indeed the specialist, what was going on there. Also, the old dentist acted very well when the OP went back to them with that complaint.

This does not strike me as a dentist who should be 'whistle blown' to the authorities, but as one who tried to fix a less-than-ideal tooth, and for one reason or another, it didn't work.

Undervalued · 6 August 2018 at 4:14PM

Toothsmith wrote: »

If I had a patient come to me and things didn't seem quite right, the first thing I would do would be to contact the last dentist to see what had been going on from their point of view. What difficulties had been encountered and what had been told to that patient, and even when that patient last attended and how reliable they usually were. It's amazing how different what the patient tells you and what the last dentist's version is sometimes!

You presumably need the patient's consent to do that?

Comms69 · 6 August 2018 at 4:18PM

Undervalued wrote: »

You presumably need the patient's consent to do that?

Depends - when registering with a new practice there is often a form to be filled out which includes amongst other things the right to access patient information from previous providers.

So yes; but it's probably already been given.

Toothsmith · 6 August 2018 at 4:33PM

Undervalued wrote: »

You presumably need the patient's consent to do that?

As above - Accessing previous notes/xrays is sometimes (but not always) necessary.

But if I saw something that looked 'less than ideal' then I would quite openly say "I would like to contact your previous dentist just to find out what the history of that particular tooth/treatment is."

If the patient DIDN'T consent to that, it would set off all sorts of alarm bells in my head! Just the same as if a previous dentist wasn't very cooperative if asked for more information would do as well

Nhs dental nightmare !!

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