To be raging my dentist will only see private patients for routine checkup

[VeniceQueen2004]

My daughter is overdue for her checkup. My dentist is now making routine appts for private patients but not NHS. I asked if I could pay private for her as a one off, and they told me that if I do that Ilwe'll come permanently off their NHS list and go onto their private plan (they would never accept me back as an NHS patient).

I ranted a bit on local FB group and it turns out this is common practice!

Is it just me who thinks this is shameless profiteering?

As per previous posters, the problem is with the inability of practices to be paid for NHS work-it the NHS wont pay them by offering them a contract, then of course the dentist will have to only work on private cases. Dentists are people who need to have a roof over their head and to eat too you know! The NHS privatisation of services is and will remain the issue, and while people continue to vote Tory and support this type of thing, dentistry will be the tip of the iceberg as far as not being seen goes- privatisation of the NHS will see things like this happening with GP’s, consultants etc. You have no idea of the contract your individual dentists are working to, and until you do you can’t possibly form an opinion as to whether or not they are performing honourably or not in how they are managing their time.

For children nhs it’s once a year, so she wouldn’t be due until January anyway????

@VeniceQueen2004
Its more that the government are bullying the dentists to go private by making working in NHS dentistry an absolute shitshow.
Its a win win for the government then because they save a ton of money and they can blame it all on the "greedy" dentists.
I don't mean to attack you personally, I think you are a good parent just wanting to do what's right for your child, but the shit dentists put up with from every angle- press, patients, NHS, GDC etc is insane. My advice to anyone who wants to be a good parent is to make sure your kids never go down the route of becoming a dentist.

100% @itsasmallworldafterall dentists have to put up with so much crap- and dentistry is far from the magic money pit people like to think it is!

Ok. I've had a lot of feedback from dentists on this thread and I'm trying to take it on board. I'm frustrated I can't get care for my child without compromising her access to future care. But I don't know the full circumstances they are working under as an individual practice.

I was going to call the practice mgr today to get more details; I'm now just feeling like this will pressure her, stress me and get me nowhere.

Feeling pretty low really. I mean Covid is a shitty crisis by itself, but trying to survive it with a Tory government who are blatant in their total disregard of the people they are supposed to serve really highlights how far this country has fallen in terms of its commitment to the social contract. This particular issue is not a major problem I'm having, and I've overreacted. But it's symbolic of a much more general diminishing of everything. And the Tories are still insanely popular. We'll get a lot worse before we get better. If we ever do.

Sorry for anyone I've ranted at on here and thanks both for people taking the time to inform me and those who sympathise with my frustration and confusion.

@VeniceQueen2004
Thank you for coming back to say that. I am sure the dentists on the thread will appreciate it.
And yes the Tories are quite impressive at cutting funding and services but then managing to get us all arguing and blaming each other rather than them.

@MilkLady02

Keep brushing, keep flossing/tepe-ing, don’t snack on sugary stuff and don’t smoke and your teeth and gums will likely be in great shape even without a check up. Dental problems (on the whole!) are entirely preventable so this is your moment people... prevent them and leave us dentists with more time available to then see more of you! Remember, we are only finding problems, we can’t stop them happening, that’s over to you!

✔️

I want to speak up for dentists, I think this is a very demanding role and the government have deliberately set them up to look like the bad guy
Dentistry is absolutely vital, without it modern life is impossible.
Thank you to all the dentists on here who take time to help and advise people 🙏💙

@VeniceQueen2004
I do feel for you and appreciate your comment. Every one is feeling frustrated with lack of all services at the moment. My dad has had his hospital appointment postponed 3 times pre Covid and now no contact at all. I completely get where you’re coming from but please understand people who work in healthcare usually only want to do their best for their patients. We will be helping to pick up the pieces of the impeding dental/medical crisis for years to come. I can only think that practices who are seeing NHS check ups are not having as many patients call with urgent needs, so they have space. Our practice has been told by the NHS 5 appts per day for emergencies only. My next AGP appt available is 19th October! When I have space for check ups, I’ll get them in! We want to see you all too!

Once again it’s Tony Blair who screwed over dentists and started this shit show

There is a huge backlog to get through and dental practices are at hugely reduced capacity. We have to keep pre-Covid ratios of pvt vs nhs so those not yet through the backlog (huge amounts of legitimate variation on this - e.g. my practice got lots of the dodgy PPE that was not fit for purpose which put us back even further).

Rather than assume everyone is profiteering please consider dentists are caring professionals just doing their best. Honestly between threads like this on mumsnet and the media bias and Covid I may actually change career. I often wonder these days why I bother.

People seem to misunderstand NHS/mixed dentistry in a way they don't seem to with pharmacy or optometery, which also operate on mixed NHS/private models.

For example, say you have a free prescription for Ibuprofen. You can take it to your local pharmacy with an NHS contract and they will give you the standard-issue generic ibuprofen, provided they have enough. If they don't, you can either try another pharmacy, or 'go private' and buy Nurofen or something for £5.

Because the NHS don't fund the Nurofen, the pharmacist wouldn't be reimbursed for it and isn't just going to give it to you for free, so you'd have to pay for it.

Likewise, if you took your prescription to the corner shop and tried to use it to get a free packet of ibuprofen, they wouldn't accept it and would have to sell you a pack instead.

And if there was a national shortage of generic ibuprofen then you'd either have to go without or suck it up and pay for branded versions.

If you replace 'prescription' with 'NHS dentistry' and 'ibuprofen' with 'treatment', that's basically how NHS dentistry works. And because there is currently a supply problem - for all the reasons outlined above (fallow time, PPE donning/doffing, extra cleaning, backlog of patients, etc, etc) - dentists are offering to see people privately (i.e. letting people 'buy the Nurofen') rather than make them go without or have to search high and low for another practice with space.

I’m glad OP has taken the info on board. There are over 80 000 people waiting over a year for routine treatment on the NHS and I have personally had so many problems accessing NHS care during lockdown and now face some huge private medical bills so I don’t have to take time off work and get further behind with patients :( it’s just Covid and the Governement - individual practices/dentists don’t have any power to change things.

RoamingEmperor good comparison but the difference in price for private dental treatment is astounding. I’m private have been for years as there has been a huge shortage of NHS dentists in my area for years. I moved away a few years ago but kept my old dentist as I came back to visit family and scheduled my check ups around visits home.

About five years ago I got a terrible infection and the company I pay a monthly sum to found me a dentist near my work. The total cost of the treatment and prescription meds was over £400. Luckily, I had the money. Even more luckily, after some discussion, the company agreed to pay half but said I should have seen my own dentist. Fair enough. If I hadn’t had the money (and I did have to put it on a card and pay it back) I’d have been in serious agony and at risk of my jaw being eaten away by the infection (the dentist told me this).

Ibuprofen can be bought in Poundland for £2, my dad used to run a corner shop and sold 16 paracetamol for 45p. It’s a very different scenario to getting something for free/nominal charge to have to pay hundreds/commit to a lot every month for insurance.

@RoamingEmperor

Actually the comparison is more that I can go without or "buy the Nurofen" with an additional commitment that regardless of future availability my child will have to pay full whack for ANY medication she might later have been prescribed for free/nominal fee, not just ibuprofen (worst case £5) but for example antidepressants or cancer medication (running into the hundreds/thousands). All because she wanted ibuprofen at a time there was a shortage.

And actually not just pay the price of the Nurofen when I need it, but to continhe to pay the Nurofen price every week whether I need or get any Nurofen or not on the off chance I do need Nurofen or some other drug in the future.

My dentist told me that they have changed all the rules for seeing patients. I need a filling redone so in the nhs in need to do it in two separate sessions and pay for each (rather than for the whole procedure), or go private and have it done in one session (and cheaper).

Serenity that doesn't sound right. If you need a filling whether it takes one or two visits it's a single course of treatment. The only exception is if you needed a urgent treatment and then returned for treatment.

Well that’s what he told me!

Serenity, where in the UK are you and how much are the NHS charges for each visit?

London and the filling would be £60 or 65 x 2 visits on the nhs. This is a new thing he said.

Current band 2 on the NHS is £62.10 and you would not pay again if you needed a second filling within 2 months. Have they given you a written quote?
Give reception a call tomorrow and ask them to explain as it makes no sense to me and I'm an NHS dentist.

He said that it would need to be done over 2 appointments. It’s a replacement filling. Not looking forward to having the old one yoinked out. Is he bullshitting me?

I've managed to get an NHS appointment for ds who has to have checkups every 3 months.

However I've needed an emergency filling and been told that nowhere will do drilling work on the NHS because of the aerosols that fling out of your mouth into the air, but they will do it privately. This makes no sense at all to me. Same dentist, same room.

Serenity, ask for a more detailed explanation as there are some materials that can be used in a deep filling, that runs the risk of needing root canal treatment. They are usually placed for a few month whilst the tooth heals and then a more permanent filling placed. They're expensive though so £60 privately wouldn't cover it.

Come back to this thread if it still isn't clear, there are lots of dentists on it. Alternatively a private option that is cheaper than the NHS could be looked on as a bonus.