Private dentist booked in emergency at my app time

[Crumpetcrunchiness]

I’m conscious I may well get my arse handed to me but here goes.

I’ve booked a private dentist appointment to get deep cleaning/fix tooth, not cheap but had to as one has broken and the soonest NHS appointment was in six weeks at the same practice. I’m in a fortunate position that I can afford it.

I’m sat waiting for my app and someone has just gone in at my time, emergency apparently but I’m annoyed they would have likely known and why not call and tell me before I’m sat waiting here? I’ve also had to arrange childcare so will now have to rush home.

I have never been kept waiting at my dentist. No one is. The appointments run like clockwork. There is an set emergency appointment time each day and you ring first thing to get an appointment in that slot.

If an nhs dentist can be that organised, I'd expect a private one to be equally so. For the prices you pay, I wouldn't expect to be kept waiting either.

There are many reasons that a dentist may run late.
Schedules are tight in dental practices, if one patient turns up late, or decided they want to have a chin wag, that then impacts the rest of the day.
Emergencies are just that. Emergencies. Patients are expecting for the dentist to get them out of pain, this takes as long as it takes.

Receptionists are not always clinically trained. So they wouldn't be able to assess how long it would take.

Paying privately or being an NHS patient doesn't determine if you will be seen on time.

As a dental nurse, my worst nightmare is running late.

I wonder if some people think there are gaps in the dental day . There are not , emergency slots get booked out every day .
We worked seeing patients 8.30 to 6.30 with 30 minutes for lunch . We had staggered nurse working times so if we ran late at least the nurse could get some lunch .
Any spaces from cancellations tend to get filled up from waiting list , private and NHS. Literally every minute of the day has a patient booked into it or cleaning down or setting up for the next patient .
In general the people I know who work NHS get 15 minutes booked out for NHS toothaches even in emergency centres. Private tend to get 30 minutes booked out . You cannot guarantee you can get people sorted in that time , particularly in the NHS .
So when something takes longer than you could predict, for the reasons given above, there is no slack in the system , no spaces to be able to catch up , even privately.
Running late can be a habitual thing in NHS practice because of time pressures , but it can also happen in private practice , although less often. It is a major source of stress to dental teams . Yes patients should be told and given choices as to whether they want to wait but running late has huge consequences for the dental team as well.

This is from an article about stress in dentistry ...

It is well known that dentistry is a stressful profession, but just what causes the stress, and to what extent does it affect the rest of the team? To this end, in late 2011 I invited dental professionals to take part in a study to determine some of the major causes of stress within the dental team; the survey also asked what effects stress had on the lives of the respondents, and what measures, if any, they took to help manage or reduce their stress. The results of the survey were illuminating…

Of the 347 respondents, 178 were principal or associate dentists and the remaining 169 were DCPs and other members of the dental team.

Of the dentists who took part, over a third (36%) stated that they were stressed about their work during most working days, nearly a fifth (19%) felt stressed every day, over a quarter (28%) felt stressed between one and three times a week, 14% less than once a week and 2% reported never feeling stressed. The majority (58%) felt that there was no particular time of day which was more stressful.

Nearly half of dentists (48%) listed running late as being their main cause of stress, followed by patient complaints (32%), compliance (30%), money (29%) and work-life balance (26%). Other significant causes of stress included conflicts between team members (21%), dealing with phobic or anxious patients (20%) and gappy appointment books (20%). As a comparison, results for the team as a whole demonstrated that running late was still the major cause of stress (52%), with conflicts between team members showing next at 32%, followed by work-life balance at 28%.

@Lollygaggle @OHEdentalnurse it’s interesting to have an insight into behind the scenes, thank you for sharing.

For PP who thought me callous, toothache really is something else and I don’t begrudge a true emergency. What I don’t understand is not being informed before my own appointment and being given the heads up it will be delayed or the option to rebook. Especially as it’s a service.

@Crumpetcrunchiness the receptionist should have let you know when you arrived as it sounds like they were running late and the emergency was booked in before you.
As far as letting you know before you arrived, dentistry is not always predictable in timing as @Lollygaggle said. Someone is nervous, the anaesthetic is slow to work, Mr X arrived a few minutes late, decay is much deeper than it appeared or even Mrs J is determined to give you an update on her entire family despite the fact she could see other people waiting when she arrived and you haven't asked about them. It's easy to be running on time to running late very quickly.
We run pretty on time as my nurse likes to give me regular timing updates during treatment and she'll hold the door open for Mrs J.

@MillyMollyMardy is your nurse good at the other great factor for running late ...... the patient wearing 14 layers of clothing that they take off just before sitting in chair and put on again before leaving?

@lollygaggle she's got a good memory so will have opened the windows prior to that person coming in to ensure they don't need to do the shedding of layers!

Anyway remember the number of layers that need to be taken off is inversely proportionate to the length of the appointment. So quick socket check -15 layers required.