lordharding

iTrader: (1)

Orignally I was with my old dentist for 20 years who retired to be replaced by a butcher who then went private and wanted £480 to do 2 extractions and a filling .


Got registered with my misses NHS dentist 40 miles away who did the necessary work for £75 NHS rates so I I have been with him for 7 years
He once mentioned he was looking for another partner for 4 years !!!

Last week we got a letter to say he has had to go private and recommended a denal plan of £12 per month which gets you 2 check ups and 2 hygene visits in the year and you pay for any treatment .

I rang around my local town to see if any one was taken on NHS patients and

No Chance !!
so this morning set off at 630AM for a hours drive expecting to be the first in a que and got there at 730 AM to find 600 people all before me waiting to sign up to the private plan !!

He had 4000 people on the books and was first come first served for 1000 only .

For 4 hours we were queing up with the eldery and young the police were in attendance for que jumpers and a possible riot when they were turning people away at 8 AM !!


What sort of state is this countrys dental service in ?

It would not of been so bad if it was for an NHS Dentist but for a private one for £144 and costs for treatment !!!


What does everyone else do ?

Go abroad ?
find a NHS dentist anyware ?
or are you all private ?

Do you think Mr Blaire will give me a tax rebate to pay for my dental costs ?#

Vote Labour

Your caring Goverment who pumps millions into the NHS for 70K stones

Chip

In1999 Tony Blair announced that by September 2001 anyone who wanted NHS dental care, would be able to receive it

Another load of Labour bollox then.

Chip

paulr

Its a disgrace and all politicians should be ashamed of themselves.

mart360

I needed some treatment last year, and my dentist had gone private so i rang nhs direct

to there credit they found a local dentist who was nhs,and taking patients..

i phoned them to discuss treatment options...

talk about poor customer service,

i knew what treatment i needed and wanted long term....

oh no.. not according to them.. they would asses what needed doing and work out a plan,

luckily my wifes dentist agreed to see me,

she assesed what i needed doing and wanted long term, referred me to the
local hospital who will be doing the work in november..

then thats me finished with dentists..


M

Simon C

Very few denists now are nhs, my dad is 1 one of the few practices in Shropshire still NHS.

The newer qualified GDP's want the money private brings in, they ain't prepared to work hard.

BTW dads been NHS for the last 35 years, and under the new contract scheme has signed up for the next 3 years. Then its retirement time, and this is common across teh country, the NHS is about to loose most of its experiance.

Jer

In April NHS dentists in England are on a new contract where they get paid a set fee per month instead of price per item as per now. The contracts have not been finalised but with what I've heard most will not take up this contract and are turning private.
I own an NHS / Private Dental practice just outside Glasgow with my wife and we have four dentists and a hygienist working with us. If it wasn’t for Implants, Private work and Whitening we would be loosing money.
I have appointments available tomorrow for NHS. We are busy but because we are a new practice with all the latest kit we have dentists wanting to work with us and appointments available. We have been open nine months and have 1600 patients. It would be cheaper for English people to fly up here and get work done have a few days in Glasgow and fly home. We charge £349 for Zoom whitening in London it can be £800+.
Ps I'm not a dentist.

drumsterphil

iTrader: (1)

I've just had the pleasure of joining a new dentist. Needed a collapsed tooth extracting. Joined the local private practice and got an appointment the next day from first call and had the tooth out. Cost - full set of X-rays + surgical extraction - £134. Not too bad tbh! After a week was concerned about amount of pain I was in so rang at 9am and was being seen at 11am! Fantastic IMO!

Don't mind paying the extra for private so long as I don't have to suffer an interminable wait to see an NHS dentist.

I always though that NHS rates were still 75% of private + the long wait thrown in for free.

Apparition

Similar story to drumsterphil.... except I was also put on the NHS waiting list , only about 2 months ago. This week I've had a letter to say I can now see an NHS dentist and have booked my first appointment.
Yve

FASTER MIKE!!

calling milife.......

john have word with shaun see if he'll do a cash job tell him it'll help to do more mods

mike

Aaquil

New NHS contract is due out in April next year unlikely many dentists will take it...keeps on being postponed and changed. The Government has squeezed NHS Dentistry so much that most dentists have had enough. Private health care plan dentistry is the way its going I'm afraid. Unless of course you want to see a Polish NHS Dentist!!!

Leslie

Dentists just cannot afford to run a successful practice on NHS rates. Our local and long gone now NHS dentist had a weekend emergency callout and after a day's work made £3.10p profit!

All part of NL's total lack of interest in actually doing anything to improve the lot of the electorate, only to pretend to do so.

I read also that they are now offering jobs to American psuedo doctors who have only had 2 years training instead of to our own newly qualified doctors who have done the full 5 years training and who are now on the dole!

Les

pslewis

Easy answer......

We - the public - pay to train dentists ...... they should be made to give 5 years to the NHS on a salary.

Pete

Jer

Most do Pete, they now do a two years VT in an NHS practice or hospital. You don't get into private straght away, you have to get experiance first (in Scotland anyway).

paulr

So whats the answer then.Private is fine if you can afford it but what about people on low income's.

Suggestion.
How about a "sweet tax" on Mars/Cadburys/Pepsi etc for pushing their products at every filling station/supermarket checkout,then expecting joe public to pick up the damage afterwards re tooth decay.Put the extra money in NHS dentistry.

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

just found out today that there is a local help line in sleepy old Cumbria


and Seventy people a day are ringing it up desperate for a dentist all they can do is recomend you to go to the local cue doctor or join the long long list for a NHS dentist .


looks like a trip to Prague will be planned shortly to see if I can find a Dentist along with cheap boooze and Dodgy clubs

Leslie

PSL,

Do you think it might help if the Government reduced some of the waste they are responsible for, including their obscene tax free allowances, and paid NHS dentists a reasonable salary?

Les

Petem95

My local dentist is private and they wanted to charge me almost 800quid when a filling fell out!!! Said I needed the old tooth removing, and a 'bridge' or something or other - needless to say I declined!

After about 6months of the tooth hurting on and off, I regisitered with an NHS dentist and ended up getting the tooth removed for 27quid!!!!! Ive since had a checkup and filling in the same place, and the check-up was 7quid and filling 11!!!!

Cant believe Ive waisted so much cash in my old dentist - I used to think nothing of paying 30quid for a checkup and 120 for a filling

Aaquil

Peter you get exactly what you pay for in this life...well most of the time anyway.

RaymondH

[QUOTE=lordharding He had 4000 people on the books and was first come first served for 1000 only[/QUOTE]

So you've been to sunny Dumfries, then... I wasn't affected but it was a disgraceful sight for the 21st century. This is Blair's Britain in action folks

pslewis

The Dental system was in trouble long before Labour took over .....

The question is how to pay Dentists a fair wage for working on the NHS - and its a tough one.

I was brought up as a child when Dentists were paid to 'drill & fill' .......... and I have the destroyed teeth to show for it, we cannot go back to that!!

The answer is to pay Dentists a wage to do NHS work, they will then have an incentive to NOT do work - which is better than drilling to get paid more!?

I think the problem comes when the aspirations of a decent salary for Dentists is not matched by what the public purse can afford .............. would we all be happy to pay an extra 2p in the £ on our tax so that our NHS dentist can get paid £65k a year?

Nothing comes free!!

Pete

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Pete

Obviously TB has listened to you as from April 2006 all NHS Dentists will be on a "salary" and not on a "fee per item"

This is the so called "base contract" which has yet to be finally negotiated AFAIK. GP's TAKE HOME pay on the new contract is about £50-65 grand but expect less for Dentists as they don't save peoples lives !!

Midlife.....