If you have no access to NHS dentistry, what do you do?

[applegatebanana]

I live in a region with no NHS dentistry. There's no waiting lists to sit on etc. no dental hospitals. No NHS input for children etc. there just isn't any NHS dentists any more - you can get emergency input if you fit the criteria but it's just a patch up job until you see a proper dentist. We were kicked off the books around a year ago as they went totally private and thats the general theme for all here.

I need some dental work doing. I'm just trying to figure out what non NHS folk do?

Prices are around:
Appointment - £100
Hygienist - £85
X-rays - £75
Extraction - £325
Crown - £850
Filling £150-250

How do you pay for it? Is there something I'm missing? Dental insurance doesn't seem to be much of a thing and paying in instalments relies on good credit as it's a finance agreement which isn't something to take on easily.

They have a monthly cost you can pay but that just covers the check up / hygienist and for the 4 of us is over £100 per month and we'd still have to pay for all treatments as needed.

What do you do for private dental input?

Same here. My DH has perfect teeth, no decay, no fillings at the age of 52. He rarely goes to the dentist. He has good oral hygiene.

My teeth are awful. Several extractions (as couldn't afford root canal treatment), and I have loose teeth due to gum disease. I have been quoted in excess of £3k for treatment, which I can't even nearly afford.
I'm a care worker on NMW. I don't have takeaways ever, or Sky TV, or anything else to cut down on.

I can't take out a dental plan whilst I have work needing done.
So, I'll just need to lose more of my teeth.

Can't wait for all the pregnant people to be told they need to pay £7k to have their baby. it'll be like going back to the dark ages.

I pay for it through DenPlan, under £20 a month for me and the two kids. Not too bad - some of the prices people are paying are horrendous :(

I do have good teeth, no fillings. A hygiene appointment twice a year is included in the price.

@JockTamsonsBairns thank you.
I always feel my dental issues are because I've done something wrong or not valued dental care enough. Nothing is further from the truth.

I don't put my central heating on buy anything nice or go on holiday. I save up all my PIP, I do work full time but Im disabled. Then when I need dental treatment usually every 6 months if I'm lucky my brother in law drives me from Somerset to East Sussex to see my specialist dentist who is not NHS but half the price of Somerset dentists.
This is the life of people who want to keep their teeth. Everyone else just has to have them pulled. There are numerous people young and old who have no teeth or dentures round here.

You pay £850 for a crown on the NHS? I find private costs far more!

It's not, I have terrible teeth, gum disease and partial dentures, use tepes and electric toothbrush, hygienist visit 4 times a year, dentist every 6 months. DH give his teeth a cursory brush twice a day and they are perfect teeth, we are both in our 60s, my gum troubles were mainly after having DS.

We all have NHS dentists. After lockdown we didn’t make another appointment so got removed from our original NHS dentist list.

DS got on an NHS dentist immediately, he was still a child at 17. I had no check ups for 2 years and then got on a list. DS dentist then went private and he managed to get on an NHS list 6 months ago after having no dentist for a year. DH also managed to get on to that list and he had not had any check ups for about 6 years. He had a deep clean and no issues. I will need restorative work redoing. It’s very complicated and not available on the NHS. I will need a large bridge removed. The NHS will make me a denture. I could go for implants but would need a bone graft as well, the cost is 5k per implant with a bone graft. I would need 6 implants so that’s around 30k with a private dentist minimum. I’m unsure what I will do but would need a denture for a few months for my mouth to heal anyway. I had an accident as a teenager and this was done on the NHS and is 25 years old which is a very good lifespan, the previous bridge lasted a decade.

There is a max amount you pay on treatment plans for NHS it’s £320 for me as that’s the max amount you can pay for a course.

MIL pays £25 per month for insurance.

One of the perks of my job is we get 300 yearly towards dental, same against optician needs. No way to get a nhs dentist these days.

Half the problem with my teeth is that in the 1960s when I was a child the NHS dentists filled all our teeth with amalgam which is not only toxic and totally unnecessary but as amalgam ages it swells and cracks the whole tooth which then breaks into small pieces.
I'm saving up to go to turkey to have all the amalgam removed and replaced with white fillings. It's not cosmetic its essential treatment to save my teeth.

Who told you that?!

It doesn't? I've chosen to have a silver filling over a white one because they are stronger in my back teeth
One of mine is 27 years old now and no issues

I have an NHS dentist (London) but I have good teeth apart form.one filling and one implant. A lot of the stuff I pay for is not offered on the NHS - I pay £75 every six months for the hygienist, I have a night retainer than needs replacing every few years and I was recently told I will havs to have my 10 year old implant removed and replaced (I had an implant to replace a failed root canal). That is going to cost me £4.5k. I used savings to pay for that.

In Scotland and my NHS dentist has now gone private. Can't find any round here who will do NHS. I have poor teeth,including a partial denture after an accident many years ago. This now needs to be replaced,along with some other work. Current quotes range from 1.5K to 8K. I am in my early 60s. Is it worth it???

Three different dentists.

I pay for a private one. £20 a month for 2 check ups a year and 2 hygienist including I think yearly x rays. Any treatment I would also have to pay for but I think I get a slight discount. They used to be open Saturdays and had parking but they have got rid of both so I am thinking of binning them and just going to the private one I get through my health insurance instead as it’s included now.

The last time I went to an NHS dentist it was my first appointment with them. I have to queue on the stairs like an animal in a grotty run down building.

They didn’t bother to take X-rays at all. The dentist looked at my teeth and was so rough I came out bleeding.

Never went back.

If I need the dentist I pay. I’ve been told of someone that comes to S London from Scotland to see an NHS dentist. AIBU to think that’s all wrong??

I have a private dentist and pay £18/month. This gets me 2 checkups/cleans a year and all xrays. If I need a filling, I get a discount. Not sure how much they cost.

My boyfriend has an NHS dentist, and during a check up, they just have a quick look and say it is all fine. He has started seeing a hygienist, and they flagged up several issues and have referred him to a periodontist.
It was almost like his dentist just didn't care. Like you, they also didn't take x-rays.

We pay. It's prioritised over everything other than food and housing.

Really? I’m amazed. If this cracking is already happening, drilling out the existing amalgam fillings is more than likely to result in broken teeth and you will be having crowns (far more expensive) or extractions instead of composite replacements. I don’t know a single experienced dentist who would advise anyone to drill out all their existing fillings, especially if they’ve been there since childhood. Removing a filling always means removing more tooth too. And amalgam is far more hardwearing than composite. Be careful, I hope you’ve been given good advice and don’t end up wasting your money.

I had to go private for me and my son as there's a wait list to get on the NHS wait list (no idea how that works).

My partner is still NHS and he said the prices aren't that different when I told him how much I paid.

What? I live in Scotland. Had an NHS dentist till recently but still had to pay for check-ups. It wasn't very much but still had to pay it.

Now I'm private with the same dentist as he stopped doing NHS. Luckily he got my teeth up to date with everything first. Now pay £35 per month which covers check-ups, hygienist, fillings and most maintenance type procedures.

Are you on benefits of some kind entitling you to free check-ups? Otherwise I'm confused.

I pay for private insurance that covers opticians and the dentist costs. Its also helped when I needed physio for an injury I had.

My dentist kicked 1000s of NHS patients off the books and went fully private. I simply couldn't afford the prices so luckily I found another NHS dentist.

We went for a checkup and he gave a list of all of our problems, which made no sense as we didn't even have X-rays. Then every appointment booked was cancelled on the day by them. They themselves lost the NHS contract. Turns out they were saying they were doing the work on patients but were not ffs

Lucky I found another NHS dentist who took us on as we are originally from the village where it is based and they wanted locals only. I know they're books are now full and they have a massive waiting list