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.

What's the point of complaining. There aren't many dentists around. Even if you are paying private there is a waiting list. It took me a year to get DC onto my private dentist and they will only accept new patients that are already customers.

I mean family members of existing patients only.

windowopen Don't the dentists also get reimbursed by the NHS a significant time after they carry out the work, creating cash flow problems?

No , in England and Wales dentists are set a target of treatment to carry out , and the payment is divided up into 12 equal payments. The difficulty is the targets are such that the majority of dental practices will not hit them. This is the reason dentists are so busy at the end of the financial year, working extra hours , over lunches etc because when you don't hit the target the money is clawed back from you.

Most dentists (around 78% ) do not own a practice they pay around 50 to 60% of what they earn to the practice to cover some of their expenses. However is they don't hit targets they have to pay 100% back in claw back.

Not only that but if they are not within 2% of their target the practice of contract is reduced the following year.

clawback has reached record amounts this year and that money is not reinvested in dentistry but props the rest of the NHS up.
https://bda.org/news-centre/latest-news-articles/Pages/Clawback-set-to-break-records-and-push-NHS-practices-to-the-wall.aspx

Italian statistics give 64 per 100k of which 45% are private.
I live in Puglia, in a town of about 60,000 inhabitants and if I wanted a public dentist I'd have to be referred by the hospital to one on their list. The nearest one to me is about 60 miles away.
Children don't get free dental treatment here and neither do pregnant women.

I doubt many people will want to read this https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1431126/retrieve

but it is a breakdown of dental care/payment and workforce in EU plus U.K. and Switzerland.

UK is one of the very few to include dental treatment for all as part of NHS without additional insurance payments . In many countries treatment for children is either not free or only check ups and preventative treatment is free . Very few places include orthodontics (braces) , or crowns , root treatment etc.

In most counties the majority of dental spending is out of pocket ie patients pay.

It all points to what U.K. dentists are saying , as a country we need to have a core service for the vulnerable , not pretend we can provide everything for everybody . But that requires a government to be brave enough to admit NHS dental services cannot provide everything for everybody.

The pay needs to be high enough that it attracts the dentists to work the NHS

Due to the training requirements there isnt a surplus which would mean you could pay less. Or other jobs where you can train on the job. Dentists are highly skilled professionals. The pay needs to reflect this, otherwise you have the current outcome.

I saw my NHS dentist recently for a emergency appointment, it took weeks to get one and I didn't get anywhere with 101 or A&E either. I was in a lot of pain.

He was harassed to death. He honestly looked like he had slept in a bush. The only dentist left where there had been six before.

The phone never stopped ringing, there was a woman in there shouting at the receptionist.

Weeks later I went to register at a private dentist. Receptionist had time to explain everything, dentist was relaxed and chatty. Looked like he had walked out of the pages of a dental uniform catalogue.

I couldn't stop thinking of the poor harassed NHS dentist and wondering how long it was going to be before he was in a private practice too.

I will post another young colleagues post about their work life

ANONYMOUS POST

“I am looking for some career progression advice or guidance.

I am currently working as a full time NHS GDP associate dentist and have noticed month on month a reduction in my pay to the point that I am currently struggling to pay basic household bills. (I took a loan to buy basic food last month!)

My lifestyle is not lavish or extravagant by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t buy new clothes, haven’t done for years, I don’t eat at restaurants, I drive a small car (a necessity to get to work) and use public transport as much as possible. My outgoings are bills (all essential), Lidl/Aldi food and things which I cannot change like travel, insurances and CPD (I rarely go on the courses I would like to due to cost). I haven’t had a holiday in 4 years. I don’t go out, I don’t drink/smoke/gamble. The last time I went out socially with friends was to the cinema around 3 years ago, this is not an exaggeration!

I find myself increasingly envious of what I see on social media, and find my current general quality of life is poor. My feeling is that this is largely financially led. I never envisaged as a dentist that my quality of life would be so abysmal. I appreciate that what is published on social media is not always a true reflection of peoples lives, but it would be nice to be able to go out and buy a pair of shoes without worrying that I can’t pay my rent.

Despite working over 40+ hours a week, my take home at the end of the month is less that of a supermarket sales assistant (I know as I have previously worked as one). I have no financial reserves should something unforeseeable occur. I feel like I am running a charity most days at a detriment to my own health.

I have discussed this with the practice principal and she has not been helpful. I have attended courses by the likes of Ashley Latter which I felt was not applicable to NHS dental care in the UK. I moved practices and enlisted the help of a mentor who turned out to be interested only in falsely acting as mentor to attract a new dentist to their practice.

The purpose of this post is that I feel that this could be my last year in dentistry. I largely enjoy the job, but I cannot continue to survive financially in my current situation. I think I am a good dentist, and my patient feedback is good.

My question is, how can I make life working as an NHS dentist sustainable/profitable? Im not looking to become a millionaire, I just want to wake up in the morning and not worry about my next pay check. What do I need to do to ensure I can carry on working whilst financially surviving?”

I don’t think it’s unreasonable. Our dentist does the same, DH and I are private patients and our DC are covered by same dentist under NHS. I’m grateful the dentist does this.