Disgusted By Dentists Behaviour!!!

[Windchangeface]

We moved home week before the pandemic and then non of the dentists were taking on patients.

This made me very nervous, I kept an eye out to jump as soon as they opened up.

Well...as of a few weeks ago 3/5 practises within a 15 mile radius of us put up notices on their websites ‘taking on new patients’ great I rang to register me, DH and small DS. But oh no, they aren’t taking on any NHS patients only private or Denplan! (Would cost us a minimum of £50 per month and I’m currently pregnant so should be free anyway). The receptionists at all 3 massively tried to sell me Denplan and actually made me feel like a total sponge for asking about NHS.

‘Most families prefer Denplan’ erm sorry Shannon but I highly doubt ‘most’ families prefer to spend £50+ per month on something that should be £20 a visit for them and free for their kids!

One of the receptionists even told me (in a very snooty tone) ‘no we aren’t taking NHS patients we’ve got enough of those) another stated ‘we’ve met our quota for NHS so are only taking paying patients’.

Given DH is a Dr who spends all day looking after hospital patients free of charge I’m at a loss to understand why dentists feel they’re above the NHS.

Horrible, elitist attitude excluding people who can’t afford to pay from adequate healthcare and forcing those who can to pay high premiums they shouldn’t have to!

@Windchangeface free at point of access dentistry was introduced in 1948. Charges were first introduced in 1951 because the NHS was running out of money. The then Labour government introduced these charges.

Under their NHS contracts dentists are given a budget and quota of patients. This set by the local CCG under NHS guidelines. There are not enough patient slots for the entire population.

Your husband does not see patients 'for free'. He is a salaried NHS employee. The NHS is funded through taxes paid by ordinary everyday folk like you or me. An NHS that has been seriously stretched by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently access to services is being denied or delayed indefinitely for many people.

@MsTSwift

We pay for cover thank god as I needed £2k worth of treatment a few years ago. You need to get out of the nhs mindset it’s a different system with teeth.

It shouldn’t be though. Teeth aren’t some kind of luxury bones.

I'm shocked at all the people saying we shouldn't have NHS dentists unless we're poor. NHS dentist is about the health of the nation, children having good dental care to avoid a lifetime of trouble.

I've been with an NHS dentist my whole life, it simply wouldn't occur to me to go private and pay more.

As a practice-owning dentist I am not surprised by OPs attitude, some of our medical colleagues are clueless when it comes to dentistry. Medics get paid a fixed salary, whereas most dentists get paid a percentage of the fees they earn. Those fees in the NHS are extremely poor, the government contributes very little in addition to the patient contribution (only £2 to a consultation fee) - it would be sometimes less loss-making to give the patient £50 to go elsewhere rather than treat them under the NHS. We get exactly the same fee (around £50) whether we do 1 filling or 5! And we get no money if someone doesn't turn up. It's a shit system for both patients and dentists, but it is cheap for the government, so it won't change any time soon

@Windchangeface - I agree it’s bad they won’t even accept children as NHS patients. Children at least should get access to professional dental care, to get them into good habits and ensure they maximise their chances of a healthy set of adult teeth that hopefully then won’t need expensive treatments as they grow older. My dentist treats my children on the NHS. I pay, but I have good teeth so just go once a year for a checkup, and an annual check up is not expensive (a bit more if she wants to take an xray that year). As a child, I had NHS dental care and orthodontist treatment and have lovely, uncrowded, healthy teeth now. Given the strong links being found between gum disease and more systemic illness, I think the decline in standards in dental health and growing numbers of children having to have multiple teeth removed in hospital is short sighted on the public health front. But then this pandemic revealing how unhealthy its population is has shown how short sighted this country is on that subject!

Sorry as a dental nurse that works in a mixed private and nhs dental practice although I don't find the people you came into contact with very polite I find your attitude quite disgusting.

We are completely stretched with NHS and although we really try to help everyone we really do work our butts off. We have no more room. The dentists already have to stretch their time so much and give more of their time and the nurses to accommodate the over load. We often go without our full breaks. Start early and finish late to get people treated.

We can't just open up our books for NHS there simply isn't enough room. Believe me we work hard through those books and see the non attendees and people who haven't been in x amount of years and take them off to allow the NHS waiting list to have a chance.

Sorry it doesn't accommodate your exact time frame but be a bit more considerate. When we open to private the dentist doesn't automatically see them but believe it or not we do have a private target to also achieve and an NHS target and if we don't meet the NHS target in April we're heavily fined by the NHS. This is never the case but be more considerate.

Rant over.

NHS patients being treated for free by your dh?
Blimey.
The 40% tax that goes out of our household plus NI each month must be a bloody mirage then!
🙄

Given DH is a Dr who spends all day looking after hospital patients free of charge I’m at a loss to understand why dentists feel they’re above the NHS

He doesn’t look after them “free of charge”, does he? He is paid a salary for doing so, and taxes fund that and other running costs.

Dentists have to fund all that themselves- pay salaries, heat, light, equipment. They get finding from the NHS, but once they have their quota of patients there is no more money.

Or are you really expecting dentists to treat people “free of charge” - maybe cut salaries so they can treat more “nhs” patients without recieving any money for doing so.

Of he’s a dr doesn’t he have access to the dental school for treatment? Most hospitals will give free treatment if you let students and trainees treat you.

You do sound entitled. And a bit “my husband is a Doctor don’t you know”.

Maybe instead of posting on here you should contact your MP or the SofS for health and make your views known?

YANBU OP, Loads of families can’t afford private dentistry. I know several dentists socially and they earn well, even with NHS patients on their books. Taking on a proportion of NHS patients should be a condition of being a dentist in the UK.

Dentists do not think “they’re above the NHS”. Unfortunately the system (in England) is completely broken. NHS Dentistry is contracted, so the NHS offers practices who’ve “won” the tendering process for an NHS contract (we have to fight for these) a certain amount of money for a certain amount of work. Even if we have space to see more patients, if the NHS won’t fund it, we can’t do it - we need to earn a living! And if you think dentists are making lots of money on the NHS, you’re mistaken. For some complex courses of treatment, we are earning at less than minimum wage for that course (for example paid £31.50 for 4.5 hours work). Yes, it balances out that another times we’re earning more per hour, but no one gets rich on NHS dentistry.

If you don’t like the system, please don’t blame the ones trying to make it work. Complain loudly to your MP, help put pressure to change the flawed system and help prioritise oral health in England for all.

You should be disgusted with successive governments for not funding dental care properly, not dentists.

It doesn't seem fair that it's a total lottery as to whether you get registered as an NHS patient or private. Some of the NHS patients at those surgeries may be on far higher income than you. If there's going to be a two-tiered system for dental treatment it should be based on ability to pay, perhaps on a sliding scale not random pot luck.

Also you do realise dentists that are NHS might as well work for free sometimes right?

Surely with a dh who has a good fabulous income as a doctor you can afford £50 for a dental plan?

It's disgusting that dentists aren't being funded well enough to provide NHS treatment.
They have to run a business and NHS patients cost them money, the government subsidy isn't enough to cover the costs. Don't blame the dentists - blame the government.

NHS dentists have basically disappeared for many due to government policy. I find the funding of opticians weird too. I have very short sight, I need corrective lenses to function as a productive member of society. But it costs me £40 to have an eye test, let alone buy the necessary gear.

I do wonder if it’s an area issue in the uk as I have always had nhs treatment and it’s been excellent, although for a few years I had to travel for it. My current dentist is in the nearest town never makes you feel rushed, opened as soon as restrictions lifted and offers both nhs and private work or you can have a mix. I suspect there are many people Who pay and think they get a better service

can you go on waiting list for when they are taking on NHS patients op?

can you get the denplan for your dh only and you and your dc go free?
bearing in mind you wont be free forever

Blame the governments and departments who give such low level funding for NHS dentists that they will only be able to cover so many patients. Dentists obviously make their money in private cases but to be honest so do plenty of NHS doctors too.

I work in the NHS and of course I feel it’s wrong but it’s been wrong for ages and nothings changed. governments are getting away with this. I pay under £15 a month for dental check ups and hygienist visits ( 2 each a year) I had a large filling and it was £100. I’ve only paid one ppe fee of £25 my last hygienist visit wasn’t charged for ppe despite him wearing it.

I’m not on high wages and under £25k a year but I can manage this as I don’t want to lose my teeth like my parents did, I do feel for those that can’t and have damaged teeth accordingly but the system is very wrong not the dentists.

YABU. I have friends who are dentists who say that they couldn’t afford to run the practices, buy PPE or pay staff properly if it wasn’t for private patients. They are crucial to the care we all receive.

Im sorry OP but NHS dentistry in England’s contract was changed a number of years ago to the banding/UDA system where NHS dentists have to apply for a UDA contract. No dentists I believe where happy with this change from the fee per item system (which still exists in Scotland). It is not funded like the GP services who get a set amount paid per year per patient on the books, no matter how many times each patient accesses the service. NHS dentists get paid a set amount per UDA, and treatments can range from 1 UDA to 12 UDS, and once the limit of their contract is reached they receive no more payments for any further work done. So basically if they where to continue to treat NHS patients then they would not only be working for free but also be out of pocket as they would still need to pay the assistants wage, materials used, lab fees etc.

If in your local area all the dental practices have enough patients to meet that contract each year then it is unreasonable to expect them to take on any more have have to work for free.

The other side of the coin it that if a dental practice doesn’t have enough NHS patients and doesn’t fulfill its UDA contract then they are fined.

I do not agree with what has happened to NHS dentistry over the years. However we do need to understand why there is limited resources available for NHS dentistry and why so many people struggle to get a place with an NHS dentist. For the most part it is not that dentists with an NHS contract do not want to treat NHS patients, rather their funding has been cut to the point where there isn’t enough funding to treat the whole population. I will also point out that new NHS contracts are few and far between so new dentists opening have no choice but to only offer treatment on a private basis as they cannot secure an NHS contract.

I have an NHS dentist who wouldn’t see me last summer despite reoccurring infections, he told me my tooth would need to be extracted (over the phone) but he couldn’t say when they’d be able to do it. He was incredibly blasé about it, and it was the final straw after years of feeling patronised and generally being treated like crap, especially as they knew I was very nervous. I called a local private practice who saw me the next day and advised me of my options, one of which was extraction or a very expensive treatment at specialist dentist 40 miles away. I appreciate that the expensive treatment I chose wouldn’t have been available on the NHS but to me the biggest difference was that the first private dentist was actually kind to me and spoke to me like a person rather than an inconvenience. I don’t think basic human decency should be something that we have to pay extra for! I have seen two different dentists at my NHS practice and both had the same attitude although I appreciate it may be more to do with the culture of that practice (now BUPA but was a smaller chain previously) rather than an NHS vs Private issue.