Dentists refusing to do costly treatments?

I recently had a root canal treatment on the NHS. Seems very unfair that that's not available to everyone.

And yes, I agree with PP that underfunding is the problem.

I love my NHS dentist. She does everything covered under NHS including bridges and crowns. It took a long time to find her. It's wrong that these services are not available to all.

People need to get on monthly dental plans. Mine is £18.00 per month, I get emergency appointments usually within a day, 2 checkups, 2 Hygienists, 2 xrays a year. Discount on treatments and they offer interest free finance. We cannot keep relying on the NHS sadly.

It doesn't have to be...

15 years ago I had two crowns done on the NHS. Porcelain fused to metal because they were for my front teeth. I think they ended up costing me 200 pounds.

I have since moved to the Netherlands and my Dutch dentist was very surprised at the crowns because they are functional, but they have an ugly black rim and the colour match isn't great. The Dutch have stopped using that type of crown in the 90s apparently for aesthetic reasons.

I am actually very grateful for my British crowns. I was a student at the time without any spare cash. They have functioned well for 15 years, whilst they are not the prettiest they still look good enough. I feel that is what NHS dentistry should be like. Functional with basic aesthetics.

Where I live now I have to pay for my dentistry, I wish I had access to my NHS dentist from 15 years ago!

What happens is that your other teeth will, over time, start shifting to fill the gap and this may cause them to become loose and it will ruin your bite, which will in turn cause a different set of problems!

Ask me how I know!

<—————- Victim of shoddy dentistry as a teen. Paying for it now!

They do both, bit we are NHS

In an ideal world, you're obviously right. In reality, many people I know can't get an NHS dentist, despite having paid a fortune in taxes, so at least you and I are luckier than many as we have one.

The 111 service is an emergency service to get people out of pain/infection. They will not provide routine dentistry or complex dentistry like root treatments, bridges etc . It’s not what the service is for. People in genuine emergency need struggle enough to get appointments etc without inappropriate use of the line.

I think there may be a communication problem here. Loosing a tooth anywhere in the mouth will not cause other teeth to become loose or “weaken” them. Once teeth are formed nothing weakens them except acid produced from sugar or the stomach.

Teeth do move even if you don’t have teeth on t. They move forwards naturally (mesial drift) and it’s why many peoples lower front teeth look more crooked as time goes by.

But presumably the nhs dentist is treating this?

I’ve had exactly the same thing - also an NHS patient with BUPA. I ended up paying for a root canal at the endodontist as I didn’t want to lose the tooth unnecessarily

The op has an infected tooth. That is a Debra emergency. The dentist should be offering a root canal as a band 3 treatment. It is available on the NHS and is not specialised dentistry.

If the dentist is refusing to do treatment that's offered on the NHS they are breaking the rules. If they refuse to budge, contact your local ICB.

I’m sorry but not all endodontic treatments should be done by a general dentist , many have to be referred to a specialist endodontist , and a general dentist will be deemed negligent if they attempt a root treatment that is too complex.

There is a tool to assess complexity https://britishendodonticsociety.org.uk/professionals/bes_case_assessment_tool.aspx and it takes into account many factors from medical history to curvature of canals , access , how badly tooth is broken down etc .

As above all endodontic treatments have to be assessed for difficulty and if too complex must be referred to an endodontist.

For the vast majority of the country the NHS has no endodontists so any referral will have to be private .

Many factors affect complexity from curvature of root canal to access to patient medical history etc and there is a standard tool for assessing complexity https://britishendodonticsociety.org.uk/professionals/bes_case_assessment_tool.aspx

I’d also do a wee bit of research on root canals as plenty of dentists highly disagree with doing them and believe they can cause a myriad of health problems down the line.

Antibiotics do not treat abcesses they just suppress symptoms, tooth either needs to come out or a root treatment needs to be attempted.

If the tooth is badly broken then the abcess will be draining out and putting a temporary filling in will be just like putting the cork back in a shaken up bottle of pop.

If you were on Merseyside, you'd be referred to the dental hospital for your treatment, on the NHS. You'd wait a year, though. It is unfair that this is a postcode lottery.

I'm having to make my peace with having dentures and paying for sedation.

The dentist then needs to explain why they cant do the root canal. If it is too complex then that is one thing. If it is simply because they dont want to do it on nhs that is completely different

I have an NHS dentist and I have root canal work, crowns, bridges and all other treatment on the NHS so it isn’t true it doesn’t pay for those things.

Well my NHS dentist did. I also had a cracked upper tooth and was advised to have a crown placed over it,
I paid for the private crown as it had no metal whereas the NHS one did.

Maybe you need to change your Dentist.