Dentist: Root Canal to cost £800. Is this expensive ? Seems like alot.

[Oblomov]

Dh in pain. Couldn't get NHS appointment till end Aug. Paid £50 to be seen at our local dentists - yeah so they did have an appointment available after all - , but only if he went private. And paid £50.
Has been told he needs root canal treatment, or extraction. Big tooth at back and he has already lost the one next to it.
£800 they quoted him. God. Is this normal ?

Flossish, I wish I knew why there has been no outcry about the dissolution of NHS dentistry in so many parts of the country. You can't get an NHS dentist round where I live at all any more. My son has no dental care yet. I can only assume that all the media types down in London still have decent access to dentistry, as it seems to be a silent closing down of a chunk of the NHS.

I reckon within the next 10 years there will be no nhs dental system whatsoever.

CoV, I know the new contracts were a mess, what I don't understand is why the whole issue was allowed to slip into the closing down of NHS dental services in so many areas. I mean, can you imagine if all the GPs (also small businesses) had closed down and we all had to have private primary health care? The outcry would be immense. It's not the dentists choice that staggers me so much as the total lack of coordinated DH/NHS response to it...

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't available on the NHS. I just meant that MY dentist says they don't do it on the NHS.
Although when I phoned NHS Dentist helpline , my dentists was the first one that said covers all treatments. ha ha. Great.
As CoV says, dentists can pick and chose what treatments they offer.

I think because the dental system is so unique in the health system, because as I say it is small businesses run by the individual dentists the nhs don't excercise the same control as they do with other health care proffessionals. There isn't the scope for doctors to opt out in the same way as dentists. But I agree not enough of an uproar has been made over the shambles that is the nhs dental system now in this country.

Herbie it is avaliable it just isn't worth while (financially) for a dentist to carry it out.

I had a crown fitted on a cracked (molar) tooth about a month ago. I still find i can't chew on it very well. Apparently I grind my teeth in my sleep. So last week my gums ached top and bottom in that area. So my dentist filed the top tooth which helped. Now i have really bad exposed nerve pain in the crowned tooth so went to an emergency dentist today. They did an xray and can't see anything wrong. So i'm wondering if anyone knows why the pain. Thanks