To be excited I got a place at an NHS dentist

[Lyra25]

And to realise labour are doing some good things?
I am the typical ‘floating voter’ and lately have felt like I don’t want to vote for anyone.
However, I just this week managed to sign up with an NHS dentist and anecdotally more places are available. Having been sceptical, I feel happy that labour are making good use of our taxes when I can see improvements like this. AIBU

What did labour do that caused this?

Ha Iv rang approximately 30 today. Cannot get one!

A new NHS dentist came to our town and advertised for patients. I've registered and waiting to see if I've been accepted. Beyond excited.

I managed to get an NHS dentist last year after 15 years of not being registered with one. I completely understand your excitement!

I also feel like Labour are doing much better than people realise. They are having to fix 14 years of Tory destruction, there’s no quick fix, and I don’t think cutting disability support is the right redistribution of public funds, but they aren’t as bad as the media wants people to think.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm20r9r1j48o?app-referrer=deep-link

I finally got one after many years without too. But they do fuck all apart from a 2 min check every so often. It is just a box ticking exercise.

I do agree that Labour have actually been getting some stuff done. Btw, I'm homeless from a political perspective.

However, my experience with dentists when they treat you on the NHS has been dire. Recommended pulling my son's tooth because they couldn't be bothered to fix it properly. Because they don't get paid enough for it. I've had to go private to get it sorted - at a different place because the consequences of pulling that tooth would've live with him for years and caused more problems

The reason I’m happy is that it is so much more affordable if you need treatment, I need a root canal and the cost privately is £1,500 and on NHS around £280. The check ups and hygienist pretty much cost the same

I think this issue is something they have addressed, (I assume ‘incentivising’ dentists to do NHS work simply means the
government give them more money for it)

I hadn’t heard this, but this is fantastic news. During covid, I got kicked off the NHS patient list in my dentists because I had apparently missed an appointment which didn’t exist. Turned out they were just stopping all NHS treatment and it was an excuse.

I’ve since been lucky enough to find another NHS dentist but he is nowhere near as good as my original practise so I might look at signing up there again.

I have been a bit disappointed at some of the things that the government have done since they’ve been back in, but if you look past all the doom mongering of a lot of the mainstream news, there are a lot of brilliant things being done that don’t get reported widely or promoted as much. I hope the tide is starting to turn when more of the good stuff comes to fruition, definitely feels like it.

Sounds like you have great teeth, good for you!

NHS patient here. Called on Wednesday morning about a weird lump in my mouth - was seen at 10am. Was thoroughly examined, given another appointment for 3 weeks, and not charged a penny.

Both my children have had orthodontic treatment. Yes, there have been waits, but the treatment has been excellent.

I consider us very lucky to have this available.

While I can’t stand visiting the dentist I am so incredibly grateful that I have an NHS dentist. Early November my right top back tooth basically exploded while I was eating a pork scratching. The tooth splintered, filling fell out. They sorted me out an extraction on the 3rd dec as it wasn’t especially hurting. It was brutal but they were great and did their best despite the tooth being broke, they warned me there could be issues. They know I have dry mouth syndrome and am on immunosuppressants etc. on the 23rd dec I woke up in agonising pain with a a shard (?) sticking out of my gum and a foul taste in my mouth. They not only squeezed me in on the 23rd within an hour for an emergency assessment and antibiotics for infected dry socket and bits left behind but the head dentist specifically told them to add me to the end of his list on Xmas eve so he could re-assess me again to see if it had improved. If not he would make a referral to emergency dentist/surgery. Luckily the ABs really took the edge off and Xmas Eve it was a bit better. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve and I got this giant overwhelming pain and dizziness and had to literally rest my head on the table. Twenty minutes lateri felt a bit better and tongue probed the shard and my sister sat 4ft away says what the heck is that clicking noise? My mouth was smoothing it and I sounded like a crab. Five minutes later the shard hard come out through the still open socket and produced a ton of blood and retained infection. It was glorious relief and horrifying all at the same time.

Thank God for nhs dentists!!

I have just moved to a totally different area of the country. I'd had an nhs dentist for more than 25 years where i used to.live. I could not believe how difficult i found it to source an.nhs dentist. After 12 attempts i finally found one.

Not true. The NHS I go to does a full check of the entire mouth, including under my tongue, takes regular x rays and then I'm in the next room for the hygienist who does a very thorough
My guess is you probably take very good care of your oral health and hence your check up is quicker. As they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

There’s definitely been a change - our local dentist has been advertising all over the local Facebook pages for the past couple of months that they’re taking on NHS, and they used to have a long waiting list.

I’ve been with the NHS dentist forever, and I get scale and polish at most check ups, x rays when required. I had a deep clean six months ago. No different to my DH who’s with denplan. Presumably your teeth are great and require no further treatment!

My Nhs dentist also just does a check for 2 mins. She just tries to get me to do private treatments. She's not thorough at all but next time I go, I'm going go ask her to count my teeth and so x rays etc
I'm not sure what I should expect though in a check up?

I managed to register with an NHS dentist a few weeks ago. The previous practice I was with stopped doing NHS work when the only dentist that did it left around the start of the pandemic.

I had a slight toothache the other day and just strolled into a practice on the High Street, as I happened to be passing. I was gobsmacked when they said they were taking on new NHS patients. Had an appointment, infection was diagnosed and ABs prescribed, but the pain didn't go away. Made another appointment, they took an x-ray and I'm having root canal treatment next week.

We have 8 different dental practices in town and 2 in nearby villages, but none of them had been taking on NHS patients for years.

I’ll probably have to leave after saying this, but I think free dentist should only be for people who can’t afford it.
I’m sorry if you are in the situation that you can’t afford to pay for your dentist privately.

Nothing to do with anyone on this thread but Im looking at other threads here on Mumsnet with people paying for private schools and then getting a free dentist. Then criticising if someone calls an ambulance because it’s a waste of NHS funding.

Again I am not saying anything against anyone here, it’s just a strange system.

It’s easy to pay for routine appointments and hygienists, it’s the big treatments that cost thousands privately that can be tricky. Especially now when cost of living is so high

What would you like them to do if you don’t need anything doing? Obviously no one can say if you need anything doing without seeing your teeth, but you seem annoyed you haven’t needed any work done? Most people would be happy with that.

Dentists don’t count teeth. I’m also not sure what you think counting them will do? Whether you have 32 or 12 that won’t tell you if you have issues. If you don’t think your dentist is being thorough enough or you’re not sure what’s going on during the appointment then you could ask them to go through it all with you as they go. Just ask them if they’ll talk their way through the whole thing as they go.