No not understand how our NHS dentist can say our whole family of 5 are now not NHS and must pay private monthly fees to stay

[P3ff3r]

Said monthly plan doesn’t even cost of treatment.

We were NHS, how can we not now be and who can afford private x5 at the drop of a hat like that?

I live in London and there isn’t an NHS dentist within 5 miles. There have been very few for a long time.
I sat on a table of dentists recently at a wedding and they were extraordinarily wealthy: weekend houses, exotic holidays, kids at top private schools.
Perhaps medicine is the same but those I know doing private work are also senior NHS consultants whereas dentists have gone exclusively private.
It is incredible how fast the NHS is moving to a US model.

@Mollysocks if my patients would rather assume the worst of me as a person rather than blame those responsible for the mess (government) then that I wouldn’t lose any sleep going private. I only stay flogging myself in the nhs because I care about my patients. If they don’t feel the same I’d leave tomorrow.

You can’t force people to stay in their jobs

The public need to wake up and realise that last week it was pharmacist, this week it is dentists, next week it is GPs and then it’s the rest of the NHS.

The Tories are privatising by stealth

I should clarify- London is so populated that 5 miles is like 20 miles outside. No dentist or doctor would consider you as a patient at that distance.

In Scotland we do have continuous registration. We also have a few per item
System of remuneration. It's different contracts for various parts of UK.
One thing we all have in common is that we are self employed.

However if I have a choice of doing "nice" dentistry, in a relaxed environment, using good materials, and get well paid for it, without time pressures, or doing a rushed job with substandard materials in a surgery that's not well maintained, with additional bureaucracy, not to mention being poorly paid, I know which one I'd rather do

It’s probably to do with the NHS funding, when the patient fee goes up in April their UDA rate may be less than the fees they collect and will be paying the government back the excess. So if you pay £25 for a check up the dentist gets £24 pounds and has to pay £1 back to the government. If they go private and charge you £25 they get to keep the whole £25.
UDA rates differ from dentist to dentist. The contract I work under will be going private in the next couple of years. We will probably lose 70-80% of our patients but since we have very few exempt patients we will retain enough private patients to still earn the same amount of money. I am looking forward to it. I can use quality materials and spend the time actually needed for good preventative dentistry.
The UDA debacle was the idea of the labour government back in the early 2000s. A truly socialist idea where everyone pays the same fee but some get more for their money than others and thereby are subsidised by other patients payments.
The UDA value was calculated by some weird formula based on activity in 2004 ( I was on maternity leave and in true NHS form they didn’t factor in what to do if dentists were pregnant so had no plan or fair way of calculating my UDA rate, there were not enough of us to bother with. Since we are self employed ant discrimination claim was brushed under the carpet and to be honest who is going to sympathise with a dentist) I could go into great detail how it is patients who have been discriminated against by the system but that’s a whole different thread.

So its right that a huge amount of people only go to the dentist when they are in pain.

Yes because shocker not everyone can afford a dental plan. You’re talking from a very privileged viewpoint if you can’t understand this and think it’s because they don’t want to. No one wants bad teeth ffs.

We dont want to spend ANY money on them, we want the NHS to fund it

See above. Also, that is what the NHS is for. (At least that’s why Aneurin Bevan set it up) To provide healthcare for all, those who can’t afford it. Have you had any NHS treatment at all? A GP appointment perhaps? Why do you expect the NHS to pay for that and not dentistry? I’m assuming all your healthcare is private or you’re a hypocrite.

@Mollysocks

Several years ago I needed a wisdom tooth out. I went to my usual nhs dentist where I’d had yearly check ups and was told, after the consultation that I needed to pay £50 and then if I wanted it out a further £80. Obviously I couldn’t not go through with it at that point. I was in pain.

I was so confused to why I was suddenly no longer nhs. The whole industry is such a con. I mean needing regular check ups for teeth? We don’t do that regularly for any other part of the body, we don’t all have our heart checked, or anything else that actually keeps us alive, every year ugh, I’m just ranting now.
It’s such a con to sell you needless treatments like polishing and waxing and other rubbish.

You can't be serious? What on earth is waxing in connection with teeth?

*You expect the NHS to pay for that I mean

You can't be serious? What on earth is waxing in connection with teeth?

It was a joke. The waxing was hyperbole to stress how stupid polishing is.

Thank you @NommyChompers, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Our dental surgery is now mostly private. Only one dentist does NHS part time. We are now private patients and will have to pay.
Loads of dentists leaving the NHS

When Aneurin Bevan set up NHS dentistry, he didn't take into account the HUGE overheads dentists have compared to GPs. GPs are a different set up entirely. They can get through a lot more in a shorter space if time- examinations, referrals and prescriptions take up tue majority of their time.
The majority of dental surgeons work is actual treatment, consisting of informed consent, dealing with anxious patients, establishing problem, exam/rg, followed by injection, followed by follow up injection, followed by donning full PPE, dentist and nurse. followed by setting up ventilation, then drilling, then filling, often using more expensive filling materials that Bevan wouldn't have even imagined in his wildest dreams, followed by post op instructions. Making sure you employ an extra nurse to be on stand by as a runner outside the AGP surgery in case you have forgotten a piece of equipment or material.
Followed by writing up of detailed, contemporaneous notes to help avoid being sued if something goes wrong. Followed by minimum ten minutes fallow time when the surgery must be vacated and out of action. Followed by a ten minute deep clean where even the walls need to be wiped down with expensive anti viral solutions.

Aneurin Bevan could not have predicted most of that.

My point being that dentistry is an expensive business, and I cannot see how the NHS can fully fund that.

I am with Denplan and pay approx 23 Pounds a month- for this I get 2 check ups a year and 3 hygienist visits and travel insurance. You can choose an option that suits you. There is not a lot of difference in the overall cost between paying this and separately on NHS. I choose to pay this as it is important to me. My treatment went on during Covid as soon as it was allowed.I think people need to realise that there are some aspects of your life that you do have to pay for and budget accordingly. I do agree however that children and those on a low income should be free.

Dentistry fees were introduced to pay for British troops going to Korea during the Korean War. It was initially free.

People are only referred to an orthodontist if there is a non cosmetic requirement. Teeth that stick out are liable to break.

My teeth are crap. I must spend £600 quid a year. I’m truly sick of forking out for the crazy cost of it all. Last year l had two crowns and a removal. One of the crowns couldn’t be done on the NHS. That alone cost me £900. These fees are really beyond my budget.

@Mollysocks

You can't be serious? What on earth is waxing in connection with teeth?

It was a joke. The waxing was hyperbole to stress how stupid polishing is.

You have a very strange attitude to dental treatments.

@NommyChompers

The public need to wake up and realise that last week it was pharmacist, this week it is dentists, next week it is GPs and then it’s the rest of the NHS.

The Tories are privatising by stealth

You need to research the history behind the current dentistry and GP contracts. They were all labour government initiatives. The toruses have done nothing to improve things but theses contracts are not like private sector contracts they are government legislation that take years to pass through all the red tape. Both NHS dentistry and GPS contract was acknowledged as a failure within 2-3 yrs of implementation. The idiots who thought it was such a good idea ( not one of them a dentist or doctor) had one thing in mind, saving money. What they didn’t factor in is that to become a doctor or dentist you need a very high IQ so most are able to find the loopholes in the contract rapidly. I don’t know how loose the GP contract was but the dental contract now looks like a sieve covered in lots of pieces of sticking plaster (mainly red tape). We spend half our time ticking lots of boxes just so some civil service dept can justify their existence. NHS dentistry has always been contracted out to self employed private dentists. It’s just that now they expect us to be tax collectors as well.

This happened to me in 2019 before covid when my nhs suddenly went private. I wasn’t working due to illness and was terrified. Then luckily a new dentist popped up down the road and they took nhs on so I was able to get a place. Private prices are on an absolute joke. I was quoted as needing a new crown and they wanted £1500 but the nhs want £70 . I’m actually not surprised people are going private they get More money.

@BungleandGeorge thank you for answering my q.

It hadn't properly occurred to me that so much of our health care is on a self employed basis with no obligation to treat people on the NHS. I imagine i'm not alone by any stretch.

Like pp i wonder why some people view dental care so differently to any other health care. Why shouldn't people expect dental care on the NHS? Why use the fact that lots of people only go for dental treatment when they're in pain as a reason to separate it from other health care?

We phone the GP when we're in pain. Supposing he said ''You only ever ring me when you're in pain! You can only come if you pay.''

Heaven forbid anyone has to pay for their own healthcare…somebody else should definitely be footing the bill 🙄

@CharlotteRose90

This happened to me in 2019 before covid when my nhs suddenly went private. I wasn’t working due to illness and was terrified. Then luckily a new dentist popped up down the road and they took nhs on so I was able to get a place. Private prices are on an absolute joke. I was quoted as needing a new crown and they wanted £1500 but the nhs want £70 . I’m actually not surprised people are going private they get More money.

The cost of an NHS crown is actually closer to £300 or it will be after April.

My ds and family had an nhs dentist who prior to covid kept cancelling their appointments.
This went on for 18 months.
They then announced they were going completely private.
It's disgraceful that dc are not free.

In France dentistry is much harder to access as there is a huge shortage of dentists. Even privately there are few dentists.
The cost is born much more by the state though.
I pay up front and get every penny back.

@CluelesssAt50
How did you find a dentist when you were in Europe? Was it by recommendation?

[quote Laiste]**@BungleandGeorge thank you for answering my q.

It hadn't properly occurred to me that so much of our health care is on a self employed basis with no obligation to treat people on the NHS. I imagine i'm not alone by any stretch.

Like pp i wonder why some people view dental care so differently to any other health care. Why shouldn't people expect dental care on the NHS? Why use the fact that lots of people only go for dental treatment when they're in pain as a reason to separate it from other health care?

We phone the GP when we're in pain. Supposing he said ''You only ever ring me when you're in pain! You can only come if you pay.''[/quote]
Sadly in the UK we have a tradition of doing exactly that - only going to the dentist when in pain. Dental treatment should be about preventative treatment eg hygienist visits and trying to prevent problems. You do things for your body by watching what you eat, exercise etc so why not your teeth? The number of people out there who regularly have Costas etc, meals out , the latest trainers but won't invest in their health 🙄

Laiste

I see your mother went private to see the same surgeon she would see under the NHS but sooner. If the NHS wanted to employ more of that surgeons time, or another surgeon in addition, then your mother would have no need to go private. The NHS is not staffed adequately - that is the fundamental problem. Obviously the NHS buys X number of the surgeons time. What he/ she does in their own time is up to them, so many do private work then.