Can you still see a dental hygienist on the NHS?

[TheBlonde]

I'm quite
My dentist (NHS) said I needed to see the hygienist
Saw the hygienist, came out, got charged 45 quid
Apparently the hygienist at my dentist is always private

Is this standard? Can you still see a dental hygienist on the NHS?

We can see the hygenist on the NHS twice a year, but if we want to see him more regularly, we have to pay £30.

For a few brief years I was with an NHS dentist and during that time the dentist did all the hygiene work and yes it was free.

It's a rip off, isn't it Blonde.

Some stone-faced ice maiden scrapes bits off your teeth for 10 minutes, trots out the usual chat about flossing and you shell out £30.

DG, I remember the days when my dentist would do a bit of scraping as part of the check up too.

i quite like the hygienist picking around my mouth

Grrr, really annoying as pregnant so NHS dental care would or should be FREE

In theory yes. The lowest fee (as you may be aware there are now 3 fees to cover all treatment allowed on the nhs) of £15.50 covers scaling and polishing (ie hygeine work), however hygeinists are generally self employed and get an hourly fee from the dentist which is at least £20 (or it is in our practice)Therefore by the time you have seen the dentist for you check-up and the hygeinist it ends up costing the dentist rahter than them making any profit. Hence you will generally be charged the £15.50 for the check up and £30(ish) pounds for a visit to the hygeinist. It is a sign of the times I'm afraid, but you should have been told the cost prior to going in.

However if your dentist does a scale and polish at the same time as your check up it will be covered by the £15.50.

Shhh, southeast. Dentists will play on the fetishist market next, once the cosmetic one has been bled dry. You'll be forking out hundreds for your picking pleasure.

No profit, COveneer? Jeezo. How do they lose out at that price?

How do they loose out????? Right a patient comes in to see the dentist and hygeinist and pays £15.50 from that fee the dentist uses it to pay his overheads (and anything left over is his earnings to take home). If he has to pay a hygeinist £20 per hour the £15.50 simply won't stretch to cover all the overheads and leave him with anything to take home (hence the reason why they will charge £30 or so for a hygeinist vist so her fee is covered plus other overheads and the dentist ends up with a wage. In the previous scheme each item was paid for individually.

For instance, under the new sheme last week I was 60p out of pocket for treating a patient. SHe needed a tooth removed and added onto her existing denture. So she had 2 appointments - first to take an impression and send denture of to the lab to have tooth fitted, and second to extract tooth and fit denture. This took in total 40minutes of my time. Fee patient pays is the second band £42.40. Lab's bill came in at £43 so I had to give the £42.40 straight to the lab and 60p of my own money. Haven't they sorted the nhs dental system out grand eh ?

Oops sorry for that little (or rather big) rant. Can you tell I'm rather dissolusioned with the system atm?!?

I'm actually quitting work altogether (at least for a while) in 3 weeks .

i feel a bit lucky that my son had a brace fitted last year too

I agree that the new NHS dental contract is rubbish

However I will say that in the last 10 years I have received much better dental care than before
All much more competent and less fill-n-drill than the dentists of my youth

i know it sucks

no i'm not a dentist!

If I worked full time, being 5 days a week 8am to 6pm my take home pay would be in the region of £60k a year (for a working week of 45 hours with no holidays (even bank holidays) - as being self employed any days not working = no pay), so more realistically £55k (also assuming no major expenses are incurred such as replacing expensive equiptment). In addition if a patient has treatment then walks out without paying (which is suprisingly common) you are again out of pocket.

What a lot of people fail to realise is that what a dentist is quoted as earning is not actually his take home wage, it is the fees he has generated from doing treatment. From this he has to pay his nurses/receptionist/lab fees/clinical waste removal fees/surgery maintanance/bills for supplies/rent on property/etc etc. WHat ever is left over after all of that has been paid is what he takes home to pay domestic bills/mprtage/feed and clothe his family. OK so some may say that the amount he takes home is still higher than a lot of other peoples wages, which is true. However when you consider the hard work to train to that level and the continued training, plus the hours etc, it actually doesn't seemthat great at all.

SAHM here I come.