BBC news Charity Bus For Dentistry ,North East

[dottydodah]

Horrific coverage,apparently 1 in 3 people here unable to access a NHS Dentist,One poor little girl with an abscess ,in pain for nearly a week! Very kindly some Dentists have given up their spare time to man the bus .

What is your AIBU?

I wonder why dentists couldn't have given up some time in their clinics to see a couple of local patients. Seems a little odd.
No NHS dentist in my entire (quite large) city and I would be interested to know why they are happy to provide free treatment on a bus rather than a subsidised treatment in their clinic.

It costs £140 an hour to run a room in a dental clinic , so if a dentist sees a patient for free it's not only that they are donating their time , they are paying for their staff,equipment , consumables, materials, insurance , etc etc. In many cases even what the NHS pays does not cover costs.

when we volunteer for Dentaid , who provide the vans, we use our holidays and it's just our time and the cost of our indemnity (insurance ) and registration we have to donate. However most volunteers also spend a lot of free time raising money for equipment , materials etc as well as raising money for our costs when we travel abroad , with kits, to provide dentistry and training in areas of the world with virtually no dental care, as well as raising money to keep clinics going once Dentaid has left.

Many who do not volunteer also run marathons , bake cakes and raise money in other ways to cover the enormous costs of dentistry . Abroad we use very simple kit but the mobile vans need technicians etc to keep on the road and equipment working.

They’re going to be there for a full week. All the appointments were taken within 2 hours and there is a waiting list of over 100 people.

The bus has been around for a long time now.

It's a bus because it's purpose (originally) in London was to reach the intractable homeless community who you couldn't get to regular services, and who has no address to register in the usual way. An excellent initiative

It's successful (one toothpaste manufacturer even uses their support of it in their advertising).

My guess is that the successful model has been transferred to other circumstances where there are barriers to accessing dentistry and no "bricks and mortar" dentist practices with both capacity and an NHS contract

To put into context a bus can ,maybe, see around 15 people a day. A room in a NHS practice sees around 30 people a day.

It is also far,far,far more expensive to provide care in a bus even when the staffing is provided free.

The government is talking about using buses, the community service had used them for many years until the economics and maintaince , as well as the difficulties of providing modern dentistry made it unviable.

I would guestimate a minimum of £250,000 initial outlay per bus plus running costs.