To worry about the long term impacts of the lack of dentists.

[paddleboardingmum]

And I don't know when this is going to improve- or are any of you seeing more NHS dentist places? Private is just so eye-wateringly expensive isn't it. And lots of children are going to end up not used to seeing the dentist regularly so that all of the problems will potentially last a very long time.

It's very worrying OP.

And there is already an increase in the number of deaths from oral cancers because the signs aren't being picked up through lack of regular dental checks

I hadn't even thought of that aspect @SomethingNewish We must be really storing up problems as a country, with loads of people leaving things they could have nipped in the bud if they had a dentist. And then those things will get worse.

Sad thing is ,there is no shortage of dentists, just a shortage of one’s prepared to do NHS work and as stated by OP, private dentistry is just so expensive, there is literally no cap on the costs and all the fancy plans are just a way of making you pay three times the NHS rate just for the privilege of a check up

Have you shopped around for a private one? I had to switch when my NHS dentist left and went on to a plan that only costs me £18 a month for 2 check ups, 2 hygeinist appointments a year and discounted other treatments. I also negotiated them treating my primary age DD as an NHS patient if I signed up. Its less than my phone contract costs me.

I agree that the treatments can be wildly expensive though but Im hoping the regular check ups will catch any problems before they become big and expensive to fix.

There is a new dentist near us taking on NHS. Not sure how many spaces they had though.
Our dentist went fully private - they could just not make it work with the payments they received from the government for NHS patients.

That sounds good @Mountainmamma is that via the dentist themselves? I don't think mine has that. I still try to keep up with check ups but it's so much. People just won't be able to afford it. It's hard to understand if there are enough dentists- do they actually have free time though or are they still overrun with private patients? I know some of them are doing Botox and things like that.