Dentist wants 95 pounds to register child as an NHS patient

[surreyisik]

Hi all,
Just wanted to get some views here. High street dentist wants us to register as a patient first to take DS as an NHS patient. It's fine until this point, but they say they can only do this if we register as a private patient ourselves (£95) and get checked regularly with at least something basic such as teeth cleaning (£75)
Do you think this is acceptable? Why do we have to pay to make sure our son can become an NHS patient and not pay?? It feels unfair, especially for families who can't afford it.

I've been unable.to have dental.treatmemt for years because of the cost. Nothing I can do about it. Fortunately my children currently are NHS patients but I registered them when I was still under the.maternity free treatment benefit.

But if no one is paying for that healthcare ( government not funding dentistry) then the comparison is the same - from a private business point of view

I have an NHS dentist and this thread has reminded me that we hadn't been in a while. Booked myself and dc in for check ups in a few months as first available slots. I am obviously very lucky.

Completely untrue statement.

The NHS dentistry is a shambles.

Dentistry starts at home, the only reason a child's oral health would be poor is from poor habits in the home (brushing/diet) not by going to the dentist. You think seeing a dentist twice a year is going to solve 6 months worth of dental neglect?

People are happy to spend £30 on their nails, £400 a month on car payments, £14 on cocktails ..... but spend £25 for a check up for their child. "Oh no, it's far too expensive"
Some of you need to get your priorities straight.

I pay privately £50 once a year because it's necessary.

Most dentists are trying to wade through backlogs of patients that don't visit regularly, are having remedial work due to dodgy company's online or abroad, or simply can't be arsed to brush their teeth.

Here is an example of how NHS dentists in Scotland get paid.
A child requires a tooth extraction. The procedure usually takes half an hour. If poor cooperation, which happens a lot, the extraction might not be able to go ahead, so the 30 minutes is effectively wasted, and the patient reappointed.
But say for example the patient extracts the tooth in 30 mins. In Scotland there is a fee per item system. The practice receives that money, which equates to an hourly rate of £20.30.
The practice keeps half of that ( ratio 50:50) order to pay the nurse ( doesn't cover hourly rate of nurse), materials, sterilisation, admin, utility bills, various insurances, PPE, computer software etc etc...

The associate dentist gets the £10.15 for the hour they work ( normal apportionment is 50:50)

They need to put approximately 25% away to taxman. Then they also need to ensure they have paid for their indemnity, their uniform, their GDC license to practice, their transport costs,

In summary, the dentist who is carrying out the NHS extraction has earned about £5 or £6 an hour after expenses.

The practice is working at a considerable loss.

Of course some items on the NHS are slightly higher remuneration, but generally the the figures aren't stacking up any longer. Every time I make a denture on the NHS it actually costs me money now.

Dentists really have no option but to supplement NHS with private in order to break even.

Oops. Forgot to include the extra bit underneath. An "extraction visit" which is another £8.30.
This is only payable for one appointment, so if you take a longer appointment to remove several teeth you can only claim the extraction visit once.

Apologies. It equates to a bit more than the amp but detailed in last post, but even still, you'll get the gist. It's really not possible any longer.
Some tooth extractions are really tricky and take a lot longer and require a lot of skill. we don't receive our degrees lightly I'll tell you that.

LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee

I totally accept that the government has failed with the NHS dental system. There needs to be a complete overhaul, but no government minister mentions it. I assume they're driving it into the ground.

I feel bitter that I now have to pay, plus my two adult children (MLW) at £129 for our check-ups. PLUS I work for a charity and accept a lower wage as I want to give to my local community. Why can't dentists?

Have you ever asked the heads of charities why they don't accept lower wages? You are a fool if you do while they are employed on £££.

Is it noble to accept a low wage and pay less tax than you potentially could? Let someone else who can't get a better paid job do that job while you earn more. We need taxes to pay for NHS dentistry for example. It's very selfish to deliberately under-earn just to enjoy a rosy glow of do-gooding. Who are you expecting to pay for the NHS? All the wage slaves working for the non charity sector?

When I started out in dentistry I never expected to do very much private work, no one did.
The last year , as a very experienced dentist , that I worked fully NHS I earned £27,000. I earned less than my newly qualified dental therapist.
My colleague who owned his own practice has now retired but earned £17,000 in one of the last years he worked.
Even now , working mostly privately in a very poor , very high needs area I have never earned enough to pay higher rate tax since the early 1990s.

You have to work at a faster and faster rate just to pay the bills and as someone who trained young dentists coming out of dental school with £80,000 debts , the despair many of them have at realising the mess NHS dentistry is in and their inability to earn a decent living without flogging themselves to death is very sad.

I've known my patients, patients children and grandchildren for decades and am all too aware that there is absolutely no provision for many of them to have dental treatment now almost everywhere is private . The decision to go caused a lot of guilt amongst myself and my colleagues.

However my clinical work is now finished due to ill health exacerbated by the years of mental and physical stress of dentistry , most in NHS. The immense pressure of working throughout covid definitely added to that and has resulted in many of my colleagues of the same vintage retiring absolutely burnt out. We propped up a failing system for years as more and more cost to ourselves and families. No one can expect the younger generation to do the same in a system that is exponentially getting worse.

All of this is without talking about the suicides , addictions and mental health problems plaguing dentists in an already high stress profession without the ridiculous NHS payment system that values you less than a worker at McDonald's.

This is so silly I don’t know what to say 😂😂😂😂

I’m referring to crossstritching mana’s post about why can’t dentists just work for minimum wage like she does.

why would anyone go to the bother of working hard at school, through university and paying tuition fees in order to work for wages they could get without the hassle of all that

Do you actually want no dentists to exist, crossstichingnana?

😂😂😂😂😂

Exactly. Why would a dentist who has been though 5 years of university and has all the responsibility (including the risk of being sued and having to pay thousands for the Indemnity to cover that etc) and pay all other fees associated with their profession agree to be paid the same as their dental nurse who has minimal responsibility and associated fees are much lower etc? (Not slating dental nurses by the way. I was one for years and would happily go back to it if the wages were higher. But you just can't compare the amount of training and responsibility between the two). If my current dental profession wages lowered to that of a dental nurse, I'd quit and go back to that in a heartbeat.

My friend who is a Dentist has sold her practice, it just wasn’t possible for her to earn enough as a single Mum without working in a way she wasn’t happy with.
She now does a bit of locum work, is a sedation specialist and has trained to give Botox.
She works 3 days a week and is raking it in with no stress

Communist model of work - suits those with no skills

I would also presume ‘crossstichingnana’ working a few hours in charity has had her mortgage paid and kids raised, probably has not had a professional job or she would not be talking such communist drivel

ArcticSkewer
Hahhhahhhaaaa that’s the biggest load of tripe I have ever read on MN. My God, so I need to earn more to pay for the NHS!! Also, my managers are not on loads so that blows your theory out the water.

I am entitled , as we all are, to NHS dentistry. But there are none.

Well SOMEONE has to pay for the NHS no?? Why is it always other people? Someone else should get into debt for thousands to become a dentist and give me free treatment while I work cheaply in a nice easy charity shop! Other people should pay thousands in tax to pay for it as well! Not me though as I "give back" to the community and don't earn enough to pay much tax.

Italy has 87 dentists per 100k people. Germany 83. Japan 81.
UK has 53 per 100k people.

We have the fewest number of dentists per 100k people in the whole of the G7.

When will people realise that this shortage is political?
£400 million allocated to dental care went unspent last year.

Bury St Edmunds is receiving its 10th visit from Dentaid charity. People in agony queue for hours in the street to get treatment on their bus.
Burt St Edmunds ffs! In 2023.

That's what 13 years of Tory misrule does for you folks.

Do you think paying dentists appropriately might help the lack of nhs dentists, or is that a thought too far?🙄

I read this heart breaking comment from a young colleague this morning . It tells the working reality of NHS dentistry

"I just need to say that I'm really fed up with the NHS dentistry. I've been working so very hard, with no benefits. Nobody cares, my health is going down, feel like on a treadmill.
It also affects my nurse. We can't take it any more. It's inhuman, it's wrong.
I consider myself to be a very good and caring dentist, my nurse is even better, but we’ve reached the point, we're burnt out, and ill.
I would love to move to a practice where I work hard, and I'm still able to pay the bills, and feed my family, where I have time to have a drink and go to the toilet at least once a day.
My nurse and me, we both care about so many people, but it looks like nobody cares about us.
How much can we take?
We're both done.
Not expecting any help, just wanted to say how I feel. Sometimes life it's too much."

No, they aren't allowed to do this. Yes, they do it anyway. The health inequality caused by the current dentistry system is truly shocking.

That’s absolutely dreadful
In such conditions there will be no NHS dentists left as it doesn’t make any sense to be one.

But some misguided posters blame the dentists instead of the government who don’t fund dentistry for the country.

So who is going to pay for it then?

People with better paid jobs than you, I guess is your answer. Maybe all those private dentists paying higher taxes?

Ultimately the government is to blame for the shocking state of NHS dentistry in the UK.

Actually I don't blame the dentists, but the idea we all need to earn loads just is not feasible.