to wonder why you have to pay for NHS dental treatment

[anerta]

I went to the dentist yesterday for a check up and had my teeth cleaned, for this I had to pay £18.50.Whilst I'm not particulary opposed to this, why do you have to pay for NHS dental treatment but not for other services on the NHS?

RE SCOTLAND BEING LIKE >FREE< NO, ENGLAND WOULD RATHER BITCH ON MN RADIO CHAT SHOWS ETC ETC THAN GET OFF THEIR ASS AND DEMAND SAME AS< DENTAL CHECK UPS CAN !!! DETECT CANCER ! TRUTH ! SORE TOOTH ? HELL ON BLOODY EARTH ! GUM CANCER ? ON THE TOMBSTONE > 2 BUSY MOANING RE THAT BLOODY FREELOADING SCOTLAND 2 A)SEE HOW IMPORTANT THE ISSUE IS ,B) GET OFF MY ASS AND ACUALLY REALISE NOTHING IS GIVEN WITHOUT A STRUGGLE > AHH , AS LONG AS WHATEVER GOVT. HAS THE HOME COUNTIES VOTE, NO PROBLEM! TEETH OR FALSE TEETH ! CANCER OR NO CANCER

You are very boring, maybe, especially with the shouting.

Have a - it might keep your mouth shut for a while.

Charges for NHS dentistry were brought in in 1952.

It is interesting to see how "blame Maggie" creeps in, no matter how inaccurately, into so many things. This time, it should be "blame Churchill".

I'm in Scotland and I have to pay for my check up. the only way you don't pay where I live is if you are entitled to free dental treatment.

Surely stuff like fillings /crowns are purely cosmetic. Would be cheaper and less skilled to pull tooth out?

itsall - thats not correct, Caries is a disease and the removal of it is not cosmetic. the best and cost effective treatment is to repair, removing teeth may be cheaper in the short term (although i would doubt this if you factor in stronger anaesthetics needed and antibiotics to avoid infection) but in the long run you can end up with bone loss resulting in further tooth loss, and ultimate no teeth at all and the inability to retain a denture.

Had a quick google and it looks like Thatcher did away with free NHS check-ups for all - at the dentists and the opticians.

I think that's cheap! You can not register with an NHS dentist where I love for love nor money, believe me I've been on waiting lists for YEARS!

Instead I have to go private, where it's £50 upfront to sit in the chair.. Treatments start at £38 for a checkup.. I had a tooth removed before Christmas and that was £140!

For what it's worth, I'm currently on painkillers for toothache and have been for a few days now because I can't afford to go see the dentist till payday.

Dentist where I LIVE

migratingsouth, where's that from?

Official version is that charges were brought in in 1952 for dentistry. Before Thatcher.

But then 90% of dental disease is entirely preventable and I genuinely do try to explain to my patients what it is about their diet/cleaning that means they keep needing treatment and still, the same issues arise every check up.

Surely they should take some responsibility? I had one 8yo who had decay I couldn't keep up with, granted he didn't pay but every time I saw him he had extra work that needed doing. It's the same with a number of adult patients who feel they are cheating me by ignoring my advice. Well, I get paid the same whether I do five fillings or a check up, it's no skin off my nose, they are the ones who pay so why not brush their teeth or stop eating a pack of fruit pastilles every day..?

Personally I think it's because all governments want dentistry removed from the NHS entirely and it's less of a leap of imagination if we've all been paying for years anyway.

Well sadly one weekend dh has an abscess which was major pain and he ended up crying it hurt so much and we couldn't afford a denist ended up borrowing money!
NHS treatment isn't free, and sadly we rarely go for a check up because of costs. Teeth aren't life threatening, I think it's fair enough tbh.

But an NHS emergency appointment is £17 if you pay for your treatment. Cheaper than a month's broadband or 5 pints etc etc.

It depends whether you think a grown man crying in pain is worth spending money on preventing.

Most people's treatment totals £47, that is a check up, any fillings and any extractions as well as x rays etc. Maximum, £47, not per item, per treatment plan. ten fillings £47, ten extractions £47. If you want dentures and crowns etc then the government make it more expensive at £204 but for the majority of treatment it's £47. AIBU to think that the cost is therefore fairly reasonable?

It's all about priorities I suppose. I have given up my car to be able to support a sick relative. I don't enjoy the sacrifice of cycling everywhere, especially in this weather but the savings I make add up to make it worthwhile. That's a priority of mine.

In the midst of all that shouting MaybeLater does have a point. Good dental hygiene can save lives. Even something as simple as flossing every day can help prevent heart disease.

£47 is a lot of money if you don't have it.

When my DC were preschoolers and I was paying for full-time childcare, I didn't see an optician for two years after the date I was due for one, and I had to wait 18 months to sort out a crown.

Couldn't cancel broadband because that would have cost me more money than it would save, and I didn't go out for drinks, meals or entertainment for those years either, so no savings there. It was a choice between dentistry or eating. Eating won - though I guess if I'd left it long enough I'd have given up eating due to dental problems

Fortunately, that's no longer an issue for me because my DC are now in school, but there are a large number of people who earn too much to qualify for help but still can't afford dental treatment. I think that really does need addressing.

I genuinely don't think putting aside £1 a week is beyond most people. I may be well mistaken in that belief.

To find £47 in a flash would be a challenge, I would need a month's notice to change the budget for that but £1 a week I would argue is doable for the majority. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Lots of things can be saved up for if you put a £1 a week to one side. What takes priority? It's a mistake to think priorities involve luxuries v necessities. Many people have to prioritise one necessity over another, knowing that at least one essential thing has to be forgone.

On the off-chance that you do manage to save up your £47, the odds of something going wrong and wiping that out are much higher if you are poorer to start with, because your washing machine/car/boiler etc are likely to be older and in less good condition.

This quite often affects the working poor the most - that very bracket who earn too much to qualify for exemption certificates but not enough to have the money they need to pay for everything denied them because they earn 'too much'. It's a growing problem.

The NHS seems to offer a lot of non-essential treatments though but you don't have to pay for them. I'm with the OP as to wondering why dental care is singled out in the way that it is.

Always assuming you can find an NHS dentist of course. At one point, the nearest one to me was more than 35 miles away and would only deal with emergencies as it was so over-subscribed.

Yes £47 isn't a lot but some weeks we just don't have that. £47 is the cost on NHS denist if you can find one.
Yes should have considered putting £1 a week away but something normally wipes it out sadly.

I'm in Scotland and OH and I both pay for dental work, OH has just had a check up with no work needing done and we've just had a bill through for £32, 6 months ago when his treatment finished his final bill was over £250, I'm sure some people get free dental treatment when they get certain benefits, but not all of us do :)

There's a strange little article here that tells a very small bit of the story from both points of view.

There are loads of treatments the nhs offer ( depends where you live) like ivf , breast reduction/enlargement and loads other.

I wish it was funded by the nhs as dh has a crown to be fitted and gods know how to find the money

Plus, I paid for my check up in October (£17.00), then needed emergency treatment in December (£47.00) for a wisdom tooth extraction and then again in January (£86.00) emergency filling but I opted to pay the £39 extra for a white one rather than a silver one.

Even then, I had to think carefully about it before I decided to pay the extra. And some people just wouldn't have been able to do that. Some of them would find it very difficult to pay £150 in just four months for dental treatment, emergency or not and even if they were putting away a couple of pounds each week.

Sydsaid, you can't be being seen on the NHS then, NHS check ups are free, the scale and polish part isn't though so maybe that is what you are paying for.