No NHS dentist for children

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Received a msg from our dental practice saying the children's check up appts had been cancelled. Tried to rebook and was told that due to lack of government funding the practice could no longer see NHS patients. This includes children. So they're effectively being discharged unless they re-register as private patients. Apparently all dental practices in the surrounding area are making similar decisions.

So I've had to book my 3 children in privately at a cost of £27 each for their check up.

What about the people who can't afford this. What happens to those children?

I feel so disappointed in this country.

Same for us, none in this county or the next county across for children or adults.

OP ring around, some of the private practices round by me will see children for £10 as long as one of the parents pay full price for their check ups.
I feel you though, DH has had to go private. Thankfully me and kids are under an NHS dentist (for now!).

Question from outside the UK
Aren't schools and preschools not regularily visited by dentists for check ups and hygiene instructions? I assume not?

@Prokupatuscrakedatus. I don’t think so. I haven’t heard of that happening for at least 20 years. Probably a lot longer.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

No. That stopped decades ago .

OP. Maybe contact your Primary Care Trust. They should be able to provide you with NHS dentists in your region.
Might need to travel though.

I still have an NHS dentist as do my kids, and I know how lucky we are to have that. My teeth are shit and I need a new filling almost every time (or redoing an old one). If I had to go private, I would really struggle to afford it. Hoping we get to keep ours for longer but am aware the situation is very precarious and can change at any time.

I’ve always had a private dentist and been on Denplan and my £16ish a month covers DD until she is 6 so not bad value. There’s no good NHS option here.
I will have to pay for her eventually but it’s about £120 a year so manageable for us.

I think NHS dentistry is dead but no-one is brave enough to say it out loud. Awful.

It's really tough. There needs to be another way of doing it. Where I have moved to there is no government covered dental care and a trip costs about £130 per child which I really resent! Every x-ray, brush of fluoride etc is added on top of that. But dentists also visit schools and flag children with decay - if they have no insurance and cant afford dental care then they can be referred to a free paediatric service which is means tested. This misses out the 'just rich enough to not qualify' families but is better than nothing and hopefully catches the kids most at need. If dental care goes fully private in the uk hopefully something like this could be brought in as well.

It's nationwide. The country is falling apart. Services are being slashed everywhere. The country is falling apart.

Yet, people keep on voting for the same old same old. I wonder how much more the country needs to slide, how much more services (mental health, doctors, dentists, A&E, the NHS as a whole, police, schools, ambulances, social care, etc etc etc) have to decline before people wake up and realise that the government of the last 12 years don't give a shit.

Yep no have to pay privately for all of us and still struggle to get appointments in decent time. It's bonkers.

My DC were last seen for check ups in Sept 19. They were due their six monthly check just as covid hit and then there were no check ups at all during covid. Then last year our dental practice closed and we were transferred to another practice. Who won’t see us until next year, so we’re having to wait over a year for checks from being transferred over, despite not having been checked for 3 years. I find this shocking, especially when it was drummed into us how important the six monthly checks are. So by the time they are seen, they won’t have been checked for around 3.5 years. One DC has a enamel condition and used to have fluoride applied regularly before covid, but they don’t care.

Our dentist left, and DC didn't have a check up for about a year.

They managed to get another one so they have been seen now however, I've just made an appointment and where the dentist would very quickly clean my teeth,in literally two mins,now I would have to book and pay 60 quid for it???

This is so wrong. All we can do is write to your local MP. We are regressing vs progressing! We will have a generation with bad teeth. Morally, the dentist should keep them on the nhs books but lets face it, theres more money in private. It makes me angry

It's appalling.

I was deregistered as NHS as I had not been for a while so am now private.
I had to pay for wisdom tooth removal last year, and, due to gum issues, I have to see the hygenist every 3 months at £89. Our household income is not high. I cannot sustain this.

Luckily my kids are NHS, but DH doesnt go to the dentist at all now, due to cost.

my lovely retired dentist told me that the tony blair govt changed the contracts hence ditching nhs....earn such little money....contracts never been changed or reviewed since then...!!....dentist told me a nhs root canal earns him about 30 quid profit....its hours of work....!!

I registered my foster child with an NHS dentist not too far away. The appointment was for six weeks away. I'm hoping that it is just once every six months.

I resigned myself to sitting down and phoning every dentist in order of distance. It wasn't too bad. My own dentist wasn't interested.

I've been paying for the last four years, really cross about it and DD hasn't been looking after her teeth (health issues, but still), so I can barely afford the repair work.
We do have a policy with Simply Health that covers a proportion of dental and other things, which is helpful.

I go abroad...spain or turkey...poland etc....get your teeth looked at if you are on holiday....lots cheaper than the uk and better quality equipment and treatment...and get discount of 20% if you pay cash...!!

Friends from Poland get their dental care back home, it's cheaper and they are scathing about the quality of UK dental work. Estonian friend does similar. It makes a mockery of people who criticise those "foreigners" who take advantage.

My dentist told me that the NHS is happy to cover scale and polish and very limited treatment. There is just no money for anything complex.

For all we complain, since private dentistry became the norm, teeth health is so much better.

MyDentist is who we have registered our youngest (7) with as we can’t get an nhs dentist and she has ARFID which means a poor diet and wasn’t consuming any food with enough calcium (and refused her prescribed calcium supplements) so really need to keep a real close eye on her teeth, they have been brilliant so far. I’m just grateful we can afford check ups for her (not sure what treatment costs will be like though if she needs any in the future and we can’t get a dentist for us).

I agree to get onto your local MP and if you see any petitions, then get involved. We are lucky in Liverpool having the dental hospital. We also have community dentists and can get appointments via 111. Teeth are so important for all aspects of life, including self esteem.

fucking hell mate, talk about missing the point completely.

£40 grand isn’t a lot to pay for life saving chemo treatment but the general public don’t pay it, the NHS does!!! And the rest!!

And £27 to one person might be the difference between no food shopping or letting your kids teeth miss a dentist visit.

It is so bad, I really hate our government.

I had a lot of dental issues as a child (as do lots of children with adult teeth growing through, needing braces, hygienist and fillings ect). I can’t imagine how my mum would have coped if she would have had to pay. I feel really bad for families struggling to cope financially now, and dental work is so expensive. It’s not right that anyone is not having their dental health taken care of let alone children.

People need to wake up and stop voting conservatives in.

It’s awful. Children in this country really suffer from bad teeth as it is, this is going to make it even worse.
Everyone should be entitled to NHS dentistry in my opinion, I don’t see how teeth are any different to the rest of your body. Not cosmetic procedures obviously but functioning teeth are pretty essential and toothache is a horrific pain to deal with when it occurs. It just seems so backwards that healthy teeth are seen as some kind of luxury rather than a basic first world necessity.