Dentist cancelled because of maternity exemption

[Acc0untant]

This isn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but I feel a bit put out regardless.

My dentist has cancelled my appointment next month and when I queried why the receptionist told me that they aren't seeing any patients who are exempt at the minute. In my case I have a maternity exemption certificate (runs out in March). She said it's because they aren't receiving any NHS funding for it at the minute.

The point of the maternity exemption is that due to pregnancy you can have additional things needing work (pregnant gingivitis etc) and you aren't unfairly penalised by having to visit often. In this case they're saying I can't be seen until I start paying the NHS prices again in April.

Not going to pull the discrimination card (although being told I can't use their services until I no longer have an exemption due to pregnancy certainly feels like it) but would like to hear the thoughts of others on this too!

How much is it?

But there ARE places in schools. There physically are not dentist places- there’s your difference. You can decide you want a better school than what is available and pay privately for that, but you if you physically cannot access an NHS dentist then you HAVE to pay privately.

@Choccyscofffy

Why is your partner getting free treatment? Is he exempt too?
No. That's the point. Dh is not exempt so he can continue having his nhs treatment. It's the funding for exemptions that has run out not the overall funding for nhs treatment so that's why the dentist can't treat anyone with an exemption as the dentist won't get paid.

That will just mean some people currently scraping enough yo pay privately won't be able to afford to and they will be seeking nhs treatment. It's happened with education. It will be worse for dentistry as many people who are very far from wealthy pay for private dentistry but wouldn't be able to if there was a 20% hike on it. It would make the situation even worse

Actually the overall funding for NHS treatment has run out. But by treating people who pay at least the practice is getting that money . Eg On a band one treatment the patient pays £26.80 and the NHS , on average , pays an additional £1.20 . There is no other funding that comes from the NHS treatment has, so by treating patients who pay at least the practice gets some money . If they are exempt the practice gets no money at all.

Ditto. Except in my case it is much longer ago. We moved to this area in 1999 when I was pregnant with my younger daughter and I wasn't able to find a local NHS dentist then.

Apologies if anyone has suggested this already but it might be worth contacting Pregnant Then Screwed for advice.
pregnantthenscrewed.com

I see, thanks.

It is discrimination

You can’t charge VAT on health care. There would have to be a change in the law. Any government would be very unpopular since there is currently not enough funding for NHS dentistry since they capped spending in 2006.
So many people have no choice but to use private dental services.

In truth, less than 50% of the population regularly used NHS dentistry historically and even less now.

Private charges, outside of London , reflect the true cost of dentistry. In London they just reflect the massive overheads ( cost of premixes mainly).

I'd raise this with the Health Board and my MP !

Commissioning group already knows as it was their actions that have caused the funding shortage fall. Read this

KO: How do the financial challenges faced by ICBs affect dentistry?
EC: At the outset of the year, ICBs were informed that they ought to ring fence the dental budget. So, if dentists in a particular area weren’t delivering NHS dentistry at the levels that they want, the ICB could use some of the underspend to recommission services in that area. This was welcomed by the profession – the money wouldn’t be lost to other areas of the health service as it has been done previously.
But in November, NHS England wrote to ICBs and said that the government would not be bailing out overspends and if they had any unspent or unallocated money, they would be expected to use that to prop up the overspends elsewhere. It’s meant that a lot of plans for dentistry have been stopped – if they hadn’t committed the money to the projects, those projects are not going ahead – which is hugely upsetting.
One of the things suggested at the beginning of the year was that ICBs could fund more activities than the dentists had in a contract. They could fund an additional 10% activity and many colleagues believed that was an offer that they were working to.
But now the ICBs have reversed that decision. At least 12 ICBs have written to dentists about this. In some cases, they are doing no dentistry at all for one or two months before the end of the financial year because they’ve run out of funding.

Contact your MP.

I had this more than 8 years ago. I complained to the CQC, our local NHS commissioning body and loads of other people with no response. Then, the week after my exemption ended they managed to magic up an appointment after 18 months of obstruction and delay. I see now they just tell you you can't have an appointment till it expires.

It absolutely disgusts me how hard it is to be seen by a dentist under the NHS. I haven’t had a dentist in 14 years just because it was a cost I couldn’t afford for a long time and I’ve only recently started having problems with my teeth. I tried to get one when I was pregnant and nowhere would accept me. Even though I’m still eligible I’ve had to go private now. I rang round for my 6 month old baby to get registered and there was loads saying I’d have to pay private! I literally laughed down the phone and said “not a chance, I won’t be registering any of my family or myself now”. Luckily managed to get one for him but it’s awful I had to search so much!

Actually OP had a check up 5 months ago. Her next check up was due next month but because the practice has run out of funding they cancelled and offered a new appointment after April 1st when new funding year starts.

So OP has had appointments during pregnancy and afterwards , because of lack of funding they have had to postpone next appointment by a few weeks.

There will be a health commissioning board in your area. That’s who has the NHS contracts with the dentists and sets the funding levels.

If you want to complain, they’re who to go to. They hold the purse strings.

It’ll be the uda situation
they’re funded for x number of ‘units of dental activity’. It runs April to April. If they don’t do enough the government want their money back -If they go over they will be seeing less people next year it’s very strict

a practice near me went bust two years ago because they went over the allocation
and The practice I currently work at just couldn’t make it work so pulled out of the nhs altogether

it’s not personal to you it’s just numbers - you won’t be the only one having a cancelled appointment. Complain to the practice manager if you want but I doubt it will change anything.

I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to me but they won't admit it. I got a letter to say if I was to stop at their practice I'll have to pay £15 per month and go private. We live in a small village and no one else I know got this. Just weird I got it just after my routine appointment when I was heavily pregnant.

Pregnancy and maternity are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. They may very well be breaking the law by doing this.

The question is do you want to pursue it, if it ends up with you losing your NHS dentist? Although you could always complain anonymously.

Hope this helps OP! They cannot cancel your appointments because of a matB1 without a reasonable explanation. That’s just the same as Drs cancelling your prescriptions because of it.

😂😂 keep up, they have a perfectly reasonable and legal explanation. Those who actually understand the subject explained that on page 1

There is no such thing as registration in, a dental practice. If they don't have any units of dental activity left the practice won't get paid for seeing someone under the NHS. That's the explanation.

I read that thanks. And I did not see a reasonable explanation from op’s practice just others. 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

The perfectly reasonable explanation from OP’s practice is that they do not have sufficient funding. So unless you’re saying they should work for free, that’s a very reasonable explanation.

You can also read any of the many links provided throughout the thread which explain the funding situation in detail if you’d like to fully understand the situation at hand here and that would actually make you realise exactly how reasonable and essential the practice decision is. It’s also perfectly legal and happens every year country wide :)