A trip to the dentist, NHS where art thou

n111ck said:
Government should scrap NHS dentistry and subsidise private care - maybe fund checks up for free with treatment discounted on some sort of % scale.

Ultimately its up to the individual to look after their own teeth* - expecting the NHS to support you when you can't be bothered to even brush your teeth is, as we can clearly see, not sustainable...
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yes - labour saying the tories just copied their funding idea , but neither of them addressed the problem that dentists seemingly have to subsidise banding situation
where they are obliged to do multiple fillings for the same banded price as one.

Can't get an NHS dentist in Cambridge - £100/shot for any fillings.
 
ImMrChris said:
I tried everywhere to get an NHS dentist but had to go private with a cracked tooth, they ended up pulling 2 teeth and having 3 fillings for a princely sum of £730 :eek:
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barbaric, that's how dentists were in the 90s, now most modern ones will try to save any teeth for as long as possible and pulling is a last resort

I cracked one of my teeth so bad basically only about 30% of the tooth was left, one rear corner of it.
I had no pain, could still eat on it and I had a check up in 2-3months anyway so I just waited assuming they would want to pull it.


They wanted to try a filling before extraction, they basically rebuilt my tooth over 20 minutes using the curing gun multiple times.


they just said "filling" but idk if they actually bonded a crown on or something, it feels amazing though and looks great.

Newcastle Dental Care 10/10 ( The one in the city centre)


I'm registered as NHS but they are only taking on private patients now, if anyone in Newcastle upon Tyne is looking to go private I recommend them
 
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Maybe every dentist should have to do a certain percentage of NHS work to be able to any private work.
 
413x said:
Maybe every dentist should have to do a certain percentage of NHS work to be able to any private work.
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most have NHS patients anyway, but they stop taking on NHS ones when they are still accepting private patients.
People will argue private dentists creates more space for NHS patients.

But dentists are so rare it doesn't work like that. there's not enough to go around


I signed on as a NHS patient in 2023 after not having a dentist for a few years, It seems that's around the time everywhere seems to have became full and stopped taking on more NHS

My sons 19 and doesn't have a dentist, I was checking the NHS website and no one is taking on people up here.
 
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n111ck said:
Government should scrap NHS dentistry and subsidise private care - maybe fund checks up for free with treatment discounted on some sort of % scale.
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Erm, that's almost exactly how it works now. GPs and Dentists are private businesses, paid by the Govt/NHS for treatment they provide.
 
Brutal biff said:
I got kicked off the books during COVID and wasn't even informed I was 1 day away from pulling my own tooth out till my sister n law managed get me an NHS appointment few years ago now on their books

It's ridiculous how the government have let dentists get this way
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that's exactly what happened to me :rolleyes:
 
ImMrChris said:
I tried everywhere to get an NHS dentist but had to go private with a cracked tooth, they ended up pulling 2 teeth and having 3 fillings for a princely sum of £730 :eek:

It seems you either pay through the nose or just live in constant pain nowadays I bet some people are having some right horror stories! I dread to think, I'm lucky I can afford it
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To get in that state though you cannot have been having regular check ups or taking a load of sugar.

I must have paid close to a grand last year to have all my teeth fixed. After not going to a dentist for about 5 years because my NHS joint packed up coupled with a sweet tooth (3 sugars in my tea!)

Mainly too much sugar but have cut down a lot since. Having checkups and clean once every 6 months now privately and is only costing me £200 a year which is nothing really. Still have all my teeth but did have all 4 wisdom teeth removed as my sugar addiction turned them into dust by my late 20's.
 
Bash the Tories all you like for this one, but it was during Labour governments that NHS dentistry started to decline. The Tories then continued the rot.

I got struck off in 2006 when I moved house and never found another local dentist taking NHS patients. 18 years on and I'm lucky that my worst problem is just a few chipped teeth and no pain, but I know I'll have to re-mortgage my house if I never have an emergency. A colleague of mine had to stump up a surprise £3300 last week.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
Bash the Tories all you like for this one, but it was during Labour governments that NHS dentistry started to decline. The Tories then continued the rot.

I got struck off in 2006 when I moved house and never found another local dentist taking NHS patients. 18 years on and I'm lucky that my worst problem is just a few chipped teeth and no pain, but I know I'll have to re-mortgage my house if I never have an emergency. A colleague of mine had to stump up a surprise £3300 last week.
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Where are these people going or what the hell are they doing to their teeth? Mine is 200 ish for a filling and £600 for a route canal. That is top whack.

To spend 3 and a half grand you are looking at 3 root canals and 5-6 fillings!
 
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adam cool dude said:
To get in that state though you cannot have been having regular check ups or taking a load of sugar.

I must have paid close to a grand last year to have all my teeth fixed. After not going to a dentist for about 5 years because my NHS joint packed up coupled with a sweet tooth (3 sugars in my tea!)

Mainly too much sugar but have cut down a lot since. Having checkups and clean once every 6 months now privately and is only costing me £200 a year which is nothing really. Still have all my teeth but did have all 4 wisdom teeth removed as my sugar addiction turned them into dust by my late 20's.
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it's not bad for about 5 years since my last visit i guess but i also have a sweet tooth and am getting on in years tooth loss is inevitable i guess?
 
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ImMrChris said:
it's not bad for about 5 years since my last visit i guess but i also have a sweet tooth and am getting on in years tooth loss is inevitable i guess?
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Xylitol is your friend and hydroxyapatite toothpaste.

You can reverse very small cavities that haven't yet reached the dentin.
 
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Richard - London said:
WTF? why?
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Because otherwise you're going to have so many kids with terrible, life long medical bills and terrible oral health on top of everything else.

That's really the choice. Mainly depends on if you are in favour of everyone for themselves... Or... The better off should subsidise the less well off.
There's clearly not enough cash to pay private prices from tax the way we tax at the moment.


So many things at the moment where the UK just can't foot the bill. This is just another example.
 
413x said:
Because otherwise you're going to have so many kids with terrible, life long medical bills and terrible oral health on top of everything else.

That's really the choice. Mainly depends on if you are in favour of everyone for themselves... Or... The better off should subsidise the less well off.
There's clearly not enough cash to pay private prices from tax the way we tax at the moment.


So many things at the moment where the UK just can't foot the bill. This is just another example.
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What other jobs are you going to force people to do for lower pay for the government? Maybe mechanics should be forced to work on government vehicles before they are allowed to do private work. or maybe builders will have to do a set amount of hours working for lower pay on government projects to be allowed to work?
 
Richard - London said:
What other jobs are you going to force people to do for lower pay for the government? Maybe mechanics should be forced to work on government vehicles before they are allowed to do private work. or maybe builders will have to do a set amount of hours working for lower pay on government projects to be allowed to work?
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I assume you are well off?

But Maybe.
Something sure has to change. Because lack of access to nhs dentistry is going to cost individuals so much they'll just be in pain constantly.

There are only a few options
A) increase tax to pay for it.
B) have some sort of nhs/private ratio for dentists
C) let NHS dentistry die.

Look at the figures in the thread. 100s even 1000s of pounds when many have no savings at all.


I suspect it will be yet another kick the can down the road thing. Where no one deals will it and the future generation suffers yet again.
 
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