Talk to the CQC about dental care and you could win £100 for your favourite charity NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

We've been asked by the Care Quality Commission to find out about Mumsnetters' opinions and experiences of dental care and dentists.

The Care Quality Commission say: "We believe passionately that everyone in our society deserves safe, high quality, accessible dental care. To help ensure dental services (high street dentists and emergency out of hours services) are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led, we are changing the way we regulate, inspect and rate dental care.

During an inspection, we look at premises, systems and processes, dental records and observe care being given. We also speak to patients and dental staff, to find out what they think about services being provided and identify any concerns, or best practice.

We want to hear your views on what good dental care looks like for you and your family, to help us decide which key areas we should focus on during our new style inspections, which will be finalised by April 2015."

So, what does good dental care look like for you? What is more important to you, in terms of dental care? Have you had any particularly good experiences of dental care in the past few years? Or have you had any particularly bad experiences? What would you like the CQC to look for when inspecting dental services? Is there anything in particular that you think could be done to improve dental care in general?

Whatever your experiences have been, the CQC would love to hear about them.

Everyone who adds a comment to this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will receive a £100 donation to the charity of their choice.

Thanks,
MNHQ

PS - For more information on what the CQC look for during dental inspections, you can download their draft dental care service handbook here.
You can also take part in their online consultation here, if you have more in-depth comments you want to share with them. Closing dates for the consultation is 23 January 2015, so please leave your comments here and the CQC incorporate your feedback when finalising how they inspect dental services.

Only negatives from me I'm afraid.

There is a very poor provision for out of hours dentist cover. The hours are restricted & places for appointments few.

Dental pain is agonising. If unregistered or out of surgery hours there is no where for people to go.

A&E is completely inappropriate & anyway the staff can't deal with these patients as they are not dental trained. However it would be interesting to see how many people present each year to A&E dept with dental issues. This will be thousands and thousands surely.

Completely appalling given the issues seen this winter with A&E s up & down the country unable to cope with numbers of people presenting.

There needs to be better out of hours provision. No question.

true you can go to the doctors in agony with a clear absess in your mouth and they cannot prescribe antibiotics or pain relief despite the fact you can't get an appointment to see a dentist which is madness really.

I live in a poor area with high social deprivation unfortunately the NHS care offerd by most dental practices in the area is perfunctory. I have paid for an NHS checkup with clean and polish that took a total of 10 minutes from being sat down to them taking my money.

They were reluctant to fill a small hole in my child's tooth which after a month became infected resulting in a painful tooth extraction and may now need further orthodontic treatment due to tooth overcrowding from the surrounding teeth.

However they are super keen on pushing very expensive cosmetic treatments such as tooth alignment and whitening which all has to been down privately of course. I feel the majority of dentists in our area are like middle class secondhand car salesmen.

Our saving grace is we have an excellent dental hospital nearby with a community poly clinic which is also used for teaching final year dental students and all work is supervised by consultant dentists. Myself and dcs go there now as they are honest with you and only do work which is necessary and take care in what they do. They are also very keen to teach you preventative techniques and the results have so far been much better than the private practices in our area.

I agree, jmijack. Out of hours care is patchy at best and completely inadequate at worst. Patients shouldn't have to go to a&e to obtain adequate pain relief or antibiotics.

I like my NHS Dentist. His practice is always clean (which is def something you should be looking at) and tidy. Appointments for check ups always seem really rushed though. I would ask about this too. My dentist also had a look at my daughters tongue which has a congenital problem which I was concerned about. I would also ask them about referral rates into Hosp for specialist work, how many, what needed doing etc.

It's really hard to answer this I think. I agree a good manner with children. We have seen a couple and some have been rather lacking in their ability to encourage children to not be scared. Ironic as they had small children themselves. It's a long game so best to encourage and not be to stressy to start with regarding treating children.

I agree about the importance of the practice and equipment being clean. The manner of the dentist and their ability to be patient with children and adults alike is the most important thing for me. That's rather individual of course.

When I was younger we went to the same dentist for years, she then moved practice and was an hours drive away…. my parents chose for us to move practices with her so we followed. When I moved in with DH we never thought about dental care until having children so ended up not going for a few years (ooooops!). We signed up to a new dentist last year and we're really impressed with them, the practice itself is lovely and the dentist is very friendly and lets you know what she's doing, why etc.

We are NHS patients but both me and DH needed numerous fillings and opted to pay for these privately as we wanted them white, cost us around £1000 in total. I had a couple don't on the NHS…top back where they can't be seen and I also had my maternity exemption card at the time so had initial X-rays etc done on NHS. Still was treated the same.

When young my dm took me to an NHS dentist. She did all the work she could, which I have since discovered was completely unnecessary - she received money from the gov. for work and the pratice was closed down, due to her filling and working on teeth that didn't need it.

The trust one has in the dentist is immense. I have no idea about teeth!

My dc go to a dental hygienist twice a year ( aged 7 and 5) for cleaning and she is also very clued up on treatment they may need when they have their adult teeth. I also wouldn't do anything to my dc teeth without lots of opinions from different dentists.

I use a website called allaboutteeth and it's very informative. I'm educating myself about it to stop my dc going through what I did.

I would go private by preference- it's not such a nightmare. I called one for NHS dentist an appointment and they gave a date 4 months later with a time. If you can't make it, you can't choose. You just get given another and hope that suits round my and dc life. They said to go to a&e if in pain as they didn't do emergencies.

A private dentist has more time, and will fit you in same day with extreme pain.

do dentists work the same way as doctors surgeries on the NHS? How are they regulated? No one at the dentist has ever asked me for feedback and a patients forum etc yet the doctors is very customer orientated!

24 hour emergency cover should be basic. As I understand it, this is not currently the case.

It's appalling that patients are left in awful pain because 'the dentist isn't open yet', or that A and E can only supply painkillers until they are.
If you have awful pain you can get emergency treatment, unless it's teeth, in which case, tough?

No other part of the anatomy is shrugged off like this.

With regard to everyday care, good dental care is punctual, courteous and competent in every respect. Keeping the patient informed/educated is important too - don't let patients live in ignorance of what treatment they might need in future, for example.

After needing substantial dentistry this year found an NHS dentist in Biggin Hill which is amazing, kind gentle and very understanding , as others have said previous dentists have only done absolute minimum this dentist goes the extra mile again and again. This is rare in any other dentists and am still waiting for a referral from my previous dentist after about six months and the check ups lasted maybe five minutes.

Dentist is nice enough but is £40 for a 5 minute checkup (no treatment whatsoever) really an acceptable charge? No wonder the nations teeth are going down the toilet....

I had a good dentis I was really happy with, but he decided to stop doing NHS work. Sadly, I could not afford to pay the price of private dental work, or the insurance to cover the cost of unexpected treatments. I changed to an NHS dentist surgery. I never seem to see the same person twice and although I have not had any bad experiences, they just rush me in and out.

Im 35 and was advised to get braces on my teeth to correct my bite as my teeth were wearing down fast (not for vanity reasons). Because of my age this treatment wasn't available on the NHS so had my braces fitted privately. The cost was £1, 500 on fitting, then £1, 500 on removal. During treatment we hit hard times & our circumstances changed & couldn't afford to get the braces removed!. The private practice were completely unsympathetic & didnt give two hoots & my NHS dentist said they werent allowed to touch them. I had no way of getting my hands on the money but luckily after someone mentioned PALS to me, I got given the funding for my NHS dentist to remove them. All of this caused me so much distress & at the end of it im no better off as couldnt afford to keep up the treatment! ludicrous!.

we go to an NHS dentist and have never had any problems, but they did spend more time doing clean and polish when I was private oh and apart from long waits in the waiting room but do any dentists run on time, have a family appointment tonight with a new dentist so will be interesting to see how it goes.

I always hated the dentist after a bad experience as a child, after an unbearable toothache and some dutch courage I finally went in for the first time in years. Now I go regularly for my 6 monthly check ups, I definitely think finding the right dentist is key. (Especially for the little ones - as my experience shows, a bad time can leave a scar that lasts (almost!) a lifetime!)

I've had terrible trouble with my dentist in the last 2 years since they changed hands. They are constantly cancelling my appointments, 3 times last year & I had to wait over a month for an emergency appointment which they then cancelled again & it was another 3 weeks till the next one

We had many problems finding a dentist with spaces and had to wait several years until a new practice opened, so we do not really have any choice on which practice to use.

Ideally I would look for a dentist who speaks good English and explains the procedures - the current one applies a brown paste to the children's teeth and has never given a full explanation of what it is even though I ask every time. I do not feel in a position to give informed consent, but consent is not sought anyway. I would also like one who is flexible with appointment times eg open at weekends.

CQC what do these tales tell you about NHS dentistry?
Perhaps you could pass it on that the DoH lie to the public about dentistry and as a result people have unrealistic expectations of a service that's not fit for purpose.

I think it is nice to have a familiar face at the dentist. However I sometimes find it hard to book an appointment with the same dentist every time. Also, bedside manner is important. There is one dentist that I refuse to see as he was so rude and disinterested when I had my last appointment with him... he couldn't even be bothered to make small talk.

ALWAYS HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE WITH OUR LOCAL NHS DENITST.

Agreed mrsmorton

My dentist is pretty good but costs a fortune - £85 for a five minute check up but I trust them so keep going.

It's almost impossible to find a NHS dentist around here where we live and if you do manage to find one and have a dentistry emergency during the weekend or bank holidays you can't get to see them so end up taking up S&E time to get some help.
Every organisation involved with health services assume that everyone who lives here has access to a car at all tomes and plenty of money in the bank which people don't have.
It costs a lit to train a dentist so I think they should have to work within the NHS for at least 10 years post qualification before they can go into the lucrative private side.
It can cost upwards of £50 for a dentist visit around here and if you need to see a hygenist they are classed as private even though the dentist says you need to see them and that alone costs upwards of £43 on top of the visit cost and any treatment you need.
The NHS dentistry service has deteriorated over the last 20 years and a lot of people now carry out DIY on their teeth as it is so expensive to get treatment IF you can find a NHS dentist in the first place.
There is also the fact that fillings done on the NHS frequently come out sometimes within 6 months of them being done which then costs again to have the same work done.

It is important that a dental surgery is clean, & that dentists follow the correct hygiene standards like changing gloves after each patient. Many clients often struggle to get an NHS dentist that provides a really good service, & will accommodate an appointment quickly when a problem arises. White fillings should be available on the NHS, & more orthodontic treatments should be offered to children to ensure teeth are straight & easier to maintain as well as looking their best.