To think Dentists are greedy and disgrace

[Thisismynamenow]

I have a hole in my tooth (thanks pregnancy for the poor teeth!)

My nhs dentist has apparentpy cancelled their nhs contract to go private (without telling patients) and not a single dentist within 20 miles is willing to take on nhs, but everyone can offer same day private appointments.

I know the nhs is underfunded but it's disgusting dentists are allowed to be only private, they should be made to be half nhs!

My tooth is killing me, I can't afford the £400 I've been quoted for the filling (it's a tiny hole, literally a pin hole!) And the hopsitall will only pull it which I don't want. Its annoying me more as i currently have a maternity exemption which I can't use.

Aibu to think dentists are greedy, and that it shouldn't be allowed?

With that in mind, should we penalise doctors who leave to practice medicine in a different country? What about other HCPs?

@deedledeedledum
totally agree and who else can you refer to when your beloved pet is unwell, worth every penny, I didn’t realise their wages were so low that’s outrageous considering their training

I have been an NHS dentist for 35 years. When I started we could treat as many patients as we liked, we were paid a reasonable fee for each item of treatment. If I did five fillings I was paid for five fillings. Now I get paid the same amount whether I do 1 filling or 20 fillings.
We are not salaried like doctors and we are limited to a finite number of units of dental activity. I am allocated 3000 from our practice contract which equates to 3000 check ups. Or 1000 fillings, or 250 crowns. I still have well over 2000 patients so I only work 2 days a week. If I worked full time I would run out of UDAs in about four months.
I am retiring next year from the NHS and reducing my patient list.
Prior to 2006 ( when this new contact was introduced) I was able to do a fair bit of cosmetic private work but had to scale down when the UDA system started since if we didn’t complete our UDAs we had to give money back. It wasn’t that I was lazy but I refused to lower my personal standards in order to complete my target.
I love the job but I want to enjoy dentistry again providing a high standard of dentistry with quality materials. I take pride in my work but the pressure of trying to meet targets for a fee that often doesn’t cover the running costs is stressful.

Target driven healthcare provision was always going to be recipe for disaster.

I'm a labour fan and hate the Tories but I remember there being an awful shortage of NHS dentists in 2005 , during labour govt. I'm not sure this is all on the Tories.

I'm another NHS Dentist, for the last 29 years. We are looking at resigning our NHS contract. Our accountant has looked at our income based on our uda performance and we won't be earning enough to pay the bills as NHS England will be clawing so much money back from us.
If it's greedy and disgraceful to need to pay my staff, labs, rent, indemity, CQC and myself then so be it.
I had a recent conversation with my optometrist who told me they are handing back their contract as they are also losing money on it.
I absoulutely agree that there needs to be a dental service for those that cannot afford private dentistry and that children should receive free Dentistry but you need to complain to MPs they are the only ones who can do anything about this.

Their pay is ridiculously low. After many years, Vets with specialist training ( costing more time and money) like complex orthopaedics who other vets refer to can earn more like £60k which is good pay but I would argue, not for the hours and level of training and compared to other professions. If they can figure out how to buy a practice then they can earn more as a business owner but it is still way less than you would think and the option for owning a business is very difficult now as most practices are owned by conglomerates now. Corporate entities not vets.

They do work for the NHS for a period and the hours they are worked is akin to slavery. Junior doctors have been worked for up to 96 hours A week. On average they work 10 hours a week without pay. You can't hold them in servitude for 25 years. They do their time.

@MillyMollyMardy Are dentists themselves protesting this, do you know? What about any professional bodies? I don't think writing to MPs will achieve much unless dentists back us and say the situation is unsustainable and unethical and that they do want to treat children as NHS patients. If the government thinks dentists are quite happy to go entirely private, nothing will change.

@gnilliwdog of course we are protesting, we've been protesting since 2006. The contract has twice been declared unworkable by the Goverment ; in 2008 and again this year.
The BDA has lobbied, there are media campaigns. The reason dentists are going private is we can't make it work our running costs are rising and the NHS income is not. The Government are well aware of this. They only contracted NHS Dentistry for about 50% of the population (this will be much lower now as so many contracts have been handed back)

@MillyMollyMardy OK, I think having stuck it out for 29 years is impressive, and nobody could call you greedy. I will write to my MP, utterly useless though he is. Perhaps a petition would help as well.

Yes I agree some not all are a greedy disgrace. They think they should be earning the big bucks so decide to go private and jack up their prices to make huge profits. You should see some of the eye watering prices they charge around these parts (even outside of London)!

They are happy to sit back earning the salary they feel they deserve in the full knowledge that there are poor children suffering with rotten teeth and parents are having to fight their way through the system to see someone on the NHS.

Its disgraceful and unethical. I have a lovely dentist who splits her time private and NHS. She could go totally private but has chosen not to do that so she can help the less fortunate. Some people might say well why should she…but thankfully there are still some good people out there who care about others!

@Coybubbles - members of the public could also crowdfund to pay for dental care for poor children. Ethics are similar to asking dentists to shoulder the cost. Restaurants and supermarkets could also give some free meals to disadvantaged and they could get free entry to museums and attractions.

I didn't say they would ALL leave but enough would, just as 1000s of EU dentists have left, which has caused the situation to get even worse.

NHS dentistry just doesn't pay anymore & as there are approx 14 million under 18's in the UK, dentists would be required to treat more than a few children, if you propose just emergency care, than that will be very expensive & painful, preventative care/treatment is vital.

I don't understand your POV because this crisis is being driven by Govt inaction, instead you blame the dentists!

Write to your MP and demand they fund childrens dental services properly, instead of giving them a free pass to screw us over yet again.

Energy companies to give energy for free. Similar argument to asking individual dentists to shoulder the costs. Kids who struggle at school could be offered free additional tuition by teachers. Clothes shops could offer free clothing etc.

just as sensible as asking individual dentists to shoulder the costs personally. Except big businesses might actually be able to contribute something. Small dental practices and dentists are just people trying to make their own living.

While you are writing to your MP to demand dental services be funded in this country, mention funding schools properly too.

don’t blame the individuals, very foolish and misguided

I'm a labour fan and hate the Tories but I remember there being an awful shortage of NHS dentists in 2005 , during labour govt. I'm not sure this is all on the Tories

Why? the Tories have been in for 12 years, what Labour did or didn't do is irrelevant now - yes there were shortages but it was still possible to get NHS dentistry, now that option has gone completely.

Cameron, May & Johnson have not improved the situation, Johnsons Brexit has made matters even worse and by underfunding Dentistry have overseen the move from NHS to private.

I wouldn't mind paying monthly fee for private dentist but most plans only cover check ups and hygenist. You then have to find money for any treatment

We all like to receive a service we don't pay for but the truth is there is no such thing as a free lunch. We've chosen (thanks Tory voters) not to properly fund dentistry through the nhs so now we have to pay individually. No amount of bleating is going to make dentist's work for free or at a loss.

NHS dentistry is chargeable unless you fit the exemption criteria

My Denplan covers two check ups two hygienist and 20% of all treatments
its just under £24 pm

@Coybubbles the parents should be funding it to look after their kids as private patients. The problem is we expect the middle class dentist to work for free or well below their worth just because we can't cut our cloth appropriately.

Our combined dental insurance is around £90 a month, we get zero help from the NHS. Since our practice went private we can actually get an appointment vs last year when my husband had to travel 30miles in agony to a private dentist we weren't registered with to have a tooth removed. We have an online booking option next check up appointment isn't for 6 weeks so it's not like they are short of clients just that they can finally recruit staff.

If we were to fund the NHS dentistry to the level it requires where do you propose the money comes from? We already net contribute for service we don't even use, it seems unfair to look to increase the tax or borrowing burden to fund something else when the system seems to be working well privately.

I actually think that they should have to do X amount of hours with the NHS, too, or pay back sums.

It costs a tens of thousands of pounds to train up a doctor; fees don't touch it.

Doctors also do many hours on wards and in other settings on placement- should they be paid for these then or does it realistically somewhat balance out?

YANBU, OP. It's true that the underpinning problem is political but there are a lot of scammy practices in dentistry and a terrible attitude towards NHS patients (not that there are many anymore). A registration to practise dentistry privately in the UK should be accompanied by an obligation to provide a certain number of hours to NHS patients imo, and, ideally, to do it with a good bloody grace considering the NHS provided the guinea pigs for them to learn their craft on when they were training.

I've been an NHS patient for years and have had dentists actively try to scam me by saying a tooth needed complex root canal work done that required a private referral to another practice (while that other practice was referring NHS patients in the other direction) only for me to ask instead for an NHS referral for surgical extraction at the local hospital, where I was told there was absolutely nothing wrong with the tooth at all. That happened to me and also to a friend.

Even more commonly, I've sought help with a tooth I knew was collapsing, to be told that there was nothing wrong with it except some "dental concussion" (which appears to be coded dentist-speak for "we don't give a fuck because you're not paying") and ended up not being able to eat on one side of my mouth for months on end until said tooth finally did collapse on a grand scale. That's happened twice, most recently yesterday.

This morning, I phoned for an emergency appointment, to be told that my dentist no longer offers NHS work, even though I'm an NHS patient. No communication to that effect at any point before today. I was offered my choice of a 12.30 or a 3.30 appointment, which are the last appointments of the morning and afternoon respectively. At £35 it didn't seem so much worse than the NHS charge so I took the morning one.

Turns out the tooth needs work (no shit!), which couldn't be done then and there "because it's lunchtime", so I was asked to come back tomorrow, when I'll have to pay all over again for a proper appointment. So basically, they're running a nice little scam in appointments that are too short to do anything in at all, at £35 a pop. Nice work if you can get it.

Nobody - not even this bloodsucking Tory government - is making dentists behave this way. My anecdotes involve three different supposedly NHS-inclusive practices in a 1/4-mile radius, so all common sense suggests these are commonplace activities, but it's very difficult to prove dishonesty when there is also a clinical context and practitioners can fall back on a pretence that what they chose to do or not do was in the interest of the patient as they perceived it.

What is needed is someone with the energy to collate a vast range of data and present it in a way that will grab political attention, so if there are any investigative journalists on the thread, now would be a great time to introduce yourselves!

Hello
Try to book and attend regular examinations under the NHS every 6 months and then urgent care under NHS is more accessible.

End of tax year can be difficult even as a regular patient so be aware. This year the NHS released
additional funding last minute (start of March 2023) so we carried on.

Otherwise NHS are offering weekend and late evening access sessions based on areas (Worcestershire is really good as it’s mostly rural)

I am based in South Birmingham and we take on new patients / waiting list is 4 weeks but you get an appointment. B11 4AP

Private dentists generally make the same as a NHS Dentist but see far fewer patients - stress of NHS is seeing 25-30 plus patients per day.