What are dentists doing exactly?

[musicalfrog]

Genuine question as I don't think non urgent dental care is available (still). Nobody can get check ups which surely is bread and butter work for dentists. What are they doing with their time, and aren't they worried about losing their regular income?

I have no idea how the system works but there must be an imbalance of some sort at play here.

My dentist delivered antibiotics to my home during lockdown. They have created an additional treatment room to ensure that they can leave the required amount of time after an aerosol generating procedure whilst still seeing other patients.

I had a routine check up and hygienist visit last week. Waiting room for 1 person only. They cancelled over 1000 appointments and are catching up. I pay Denplan and consider it well worth it.

This makes no sense. She wants to work more but can't, even while patients are wanting? Is that down to a lack of space at her practice?

That’s exactly the issue at my practice. Rooms need to be empty for ages after agps. My practice is tiny and only has one room. This isn’t dentists being lazy.

I've not heard anything from my dentist since my appointment was cancelled in April.
I'm surprised at some dentists charging for ppe. My dentist always wore a visor, mask, gloves and apron before Covid anyway so I hope she doesn't start charging now.

Devastated. I have real issues with gum disease and always have due to the shape of my mouth and mismatched jaw. I had to very regularly see a hygienist and have treatment. It was managing well and then this has hit and I’m so terrified I’m going to lose my teeth. It’s cost me £1000s in the past and it’s just heartbreaking as I can’t do anything to help myself without the help of a dentist.

Big differences between different surgerys. We’ve had our checkups but my parents who are at a different surgery have no idea when they will be able to have checkups. Mum has broken her tooth and has been given an appointment in over one months time!

I have halved my days at work so I have 2 surgeries to rotate between. After every aerosol procedure the room has to be left empty (fallow) for an hour and then the cleaning takes a good 20 minutes. We’re working this by having 2 surgeries to rotate around on our working days. This means less days at work.
The other alternative is work as normal but limit AGPs so only do emergencies, no fillings etc. And sit around for an hour after each AGP or do 2 a day- one before lunch and one at the end of the day, blocking a cleaning slot after lunch and first thing in the morning.
I have heard fallow time may be reduced - there’s a review going on about it.

So amount of actual surgery rooms seems to be a one of the problems, mine is working fairly normally but has several small rooms, more rooms than dentists normally there in a day. which probably makes it easier.

I had an email from mine yesterday. Essentially no NHS check ups but if I pay for a private one I can!

I have been back having dental appointments since June (private practice). A check up, scale and polish (no machine but done by hand), and I've had a crown made and fitted.

In talking to the dentist, they had been doing emergency all the way through and routine since June.

No checkups since before lockdown here.

Ours are really quite back to normal and I’ve started cosmetic dentistry (twin braces) back in August. I’m a private patient but I know that they are definitely treating NHS patients too.

This thread reminded me to phone our dentist. They've just informed me that they're still not doing checkups, only emergencies, and to try again in January! DS hasn't had a checkup since August 2019 as he was due one in February but I cancelled it as he was ill (which I’m now kicking myself for doing).

My dentist is NHS and private - NHS they are doing emergency and urgent work but nothing routine (check-ups). I had a crown that was due doing but that's been postponed and the tooth filled as a long term temporary measure. I'm not sure what they're doing privately, although my crown was being done private so I could have white rather than silver (nhs) and as I said that's been postponed indefinitely so I think the dentist is being fair and treating everyone equally.

My dc haven't had a check up since December (their standard practice is to check children every 3 months). It's really strange that they are all applying the rules so differently. Happy to do it privately yet not on the NHS implies the NHS are still paying them to do nothing - interested to know if this is the case or not.

Ours is back open and we have had usual six month checkups and a reduced scale and polish but it is private rather than NHS. Extra charge for PPE.

It seems rather predictably from most of these posts that we should all switch to being private patients if we want access to even the most basic of checkups any time soon.

I took my 2 year old for a check up a couple of week ago with an NHS dentist

I paid a £3 'PPE' charge at my daughter's hair appointment yesterday.

@Singinginshower

But how are dentist living? Their income won't be completely replaced by government funding will it? I hope they have some kind of income protection insurance

Private dentists are working almost to normal capacity. NHS dentists are being paid by the Government to do 20 percent of the work they did previously - ergo they are being paid, so dont worry about them living.

Its a disgrace. All the NHS dentists are doing is proving to the Gov they arent needed. Like opticians are going Dentistry will become private as a result of their inability to get on with their jobs. If Private dentists can, why cant they? if they "dont have the PPE" why arent the marching to parliament and kicking up a fuss. You dont hear anything because they dont want to. Its made me incredibly sceptical about the whole profession - its another one thats gone the way of you get what you pay for.

The dental practices near me are not offering check up appointments, only emergencies.

My poor dp had been booked for an rct and crown before lockdown, this was all cancelled. At the weekend his face was swollen and he had toothache. Managed to get an emergency appointment straight away as they had so many slots available

Our practice has about 5 dentists and they do both NHS and private work. DCs and I all had check-ups in early March luckily so I'm not expecting to hear from them for a while. DH has hereditary gum disease and usually goes for a deep pocket (I think that's what it's called) clean every 3 months on NHS. He was due at end of March so hadn't been since Dec - has been bleeding so called dentist and got private appointment. They did a deep pocket clean but he has to go back in 6 week intervals until they get on top of it again (at £50 a time) otherwise his gums may recede to a point where he could lose all of his teeth. Luckily he can pay that but others may not be so lucky ....... Just one of the other unintended consequences of Covid.

Ours are only seeing private patients. Makes me so mad!

Odd that dentists aren’t paying for essential resources out of their own pockets. It’s what teachers have been doing for years.
There are no open NHS lists here, and haven’t been for years, so if I need seeing, private is my only option. And they are doing beautifully in a financial sense.

I see a dentist who only takes private patients. Check ups have been cancelled though the dentist is doing emergency work, hygienist is seeing people but only using manual tools and no scale and polish. Not overly impressed as they're still taking my full monthly fee.

I saw the hygienist recently who couldn't do anything they usually do and just scraped around with the manual scraper. Better than nothing I suppose but it was the same price as the full treatment so I'm not keen to go again for a while. My husband (at a different dentist) needed some emergency treatment and it was like pulling teeth (excuse the pun) to actually see anyone.