As most dentists now appear to be interested in a captive audience of regular customers and cosmetic titivation, people who can’t afford dentistry are left in Limbo.
So, for example, would it not make sense for NHS dental practices based for example in one location such as the General in Hartlepool in our case, where urgent care can be provided for those needing it.

The problem is Dentists are not paid a salary by the NHS, they get x amount for what ever the treatment is. They are now saying what the government gives them does not cover treatments therefore they are going private, I couldn’t see the NHS paying to employ Dentists direct, you ever see a Dentist idriving a Ford Focus or similar ?

When you were kid if you went to the dentist with toothache they yanked it out, nowadays their policy about saving but at a price.

My Dentist has 600 practices including Hartlepool in the U.K. whose parent company is Palamon Capital Partners , a London-based private equity firm. It was founded in 1999, and is headquartered at 60 Charlotte Street, London.
The dentist I use was taken over by My Dentist when the previous dentists retired, I have had 2 bad experiences, first one when replacing a crown the dentist chipped the one next to it, she said we will replace it free of charge, second one different dentist filled a tooth, it fell out after 2 weeks.
I haven’t been back since, I have both of my teeth fixed at another dentist, my experience of My Dentist was all they did was ‘tout’ for business as if they were on commission.

can remember a time when all dentists were free as well as opticians where all work done was under the NHS. the present NHS is a pale version of the original one and possibly if it did not exist you would get this treatment free on some health insurance you have taken out. the only thing we should be paying for is cosmetic treatments and designer type specs.

I am proposing dentists at such a location would be employed directly by the NHS.
The effective privatisation of dentists is just a disgrace, once big money comes in from the private sector they want their pound of flesh and a bit more, run for their benefit not the publics.

exactly. surely teeth are part of a health service where everyone has had the need to visit them over there lives unlike hospitals where if you are lucky its just out patiants you go to. never know why the situation was ever allowed to get where it is now.

Having a catalogue of patients for a dental practice requires patients to come in for regular check ups…why?
Does your doctor call in all their patients annually for a check up and they’re dealing with a whole lot more to go wrong, no they don’t unless they’re a special case.
I suspect it’s more about cosmetic appearance than basic dental care.

Bring back the visiting school dentists would provide a great 1st line screening for kids teeth and free up millions of hours of appointment time. Basically all they used to do was a routine check and advise if you needed to book an appointment at a treating dental practice, they didn't do treatment just the check.

Haven't been to Dentist for 20+ years and nearly 30 years since "visited" the Doctor.

Still breathing and eating so I say "f**k them all!

there must be something in that as you only ring up the doctor if there is something wrong with you and if you have a medical problem they call you up yearly. the dentists were a six monthly thing but i only went if the pain got too much.

Dentists would not work for the salaries the NHS would be prepared to pay, private work is very lucrative as is Doctors. The annoying part is Doctors use NHS facilities for private work albeit they pay a fee for it but at the same time depriving NHS patients the use of.
GP practices receive around £180 per patient annually for every patient they have on the books irrespective if they ever attend or not.
Some GP Practices are owned by the GPs who work in the surgery but many are owned by conglomerates.

My take on it is that the NHS should employ some dentists in locations like Snowy said but they would need to be well remunerated to get some of the newly qualified ones to take this as a career path or to get others to defect from practices (possibly older dentists who want to semi retire or others who dont want the hassle of a partnership/ lifestyle preference).
However my thoughts are what skill levels do you need to take a tooth out or a basic filling? Perhaps patients could be triaged by a full qualified dentist then passed onto lower level dentists/technicians to deal with this basic work.
Now i am not naive enough to think this would not be resisted massively by the BDA but it would create new capacity free to all. Like the BMA the BDA make Red Robbo and Scargill seem like pussy cats for abuse of union power.
These unions are the real enemy who prevent development and change. Possibly we need an organisation to come forward and do a Specsavers providing affordable dental care on a private basis. Toothsavers?

My dentists hygienist is drop dead gorgeous...shame she leaves me in such pain afterwards.

Ever had any work done abroad mr j?...i have thought about it.

Mine is too, i love a woman in a uniform.

Well make it worthwhile, pay them more. Never mind just accepting the status quo, it’s bleeding obvious it’s not fit for purpose.
No excuses.
A central large NHS practice in a hospital setting would also attract people back to using the NHS services….by making all dental graduates serve 5 years in the NHS before going into private practice and waive all student dental training fees.

Yes and some may stay as they prefer to be employed and feel they are contributing to society.. Some doctors practices have salaried Doctors which essentially we pay for so why not dentists.

Speaking as a retired nurse (SRN).. This is only a personal opinion: How come teeth are different than eyes, tits, legs or whatever? They are an integral part of the body whose poor health impacts other parts of the body. Dentistry should be brought fully into the NHS which we all pay for at source. Work for the NHS on a good salary (are you listening HM Govt.?) Or , you feck off to private practice and its either or. On a more personal level to illustrate how important I think my views are: Two years ago I developed a dental abscess. I was told my tooth needed extracting and booked a week later to be taken out. In the meantime I was put on antibiotics which did not work and developed the abscess which turned out to be life threatening. Result: I looked like the elephant man and the swelling pushed against my trachea dangerously. A 3am emergency admission and straight from the ambulance into theatre. 48 hours on a ventilator and 9 days in hospital. They had to cut my neck open in three places to drain the abscess and I was told it was touch and go if I lived. Whilst in hospital, I had a catheter up my Japs eye, three intravenous lines in my arms pumping me with antibiotics 2 hourly around the clock. Blood gas injections daily in my stomach. Pneumonia. Nasal gastric tube to feed me. All for a tooth. So, please forgive me bunkerites for stating my case for how important dentistry is. Apparently it was free when the NHS was started in 1948 for 3 years and its architect Aneuyrin Bevan resigned over its being taken out and fee pay introduced.

⬆️ good post.

Dentist on every corner, had a couple of minor treatments no complaints, from what I know it can be expensive, a colleague wife had an abscess , a root canal and a crown fitted £1000, I couldn’t understand why as it was a back tooth he didn’t say just whip it out.

Dentists similar Doctors pay fees for uni so they can work where they want.
Make uni free then after they finish sign a contract with the NHS for 3 to 5 years, if they break the contract they have to pay the money back.

I’ve said that, do you read other people’s posts properly, I do.

Is it in the Bunker rules or is it an offence you can’t repeat anything you or others have said Snowy, at a quick glance I can’t see where you or others said pay the Dentists/Doctors Uni Fees and contract them to work in the NHS for 3 to 5 years ?
We are discussing Dentistry not about posters repeating comments, are you the Bunker monitor checking for repeat comments ?

make it free for certain courses like this but double the fee for what we see are pointless ones with no work to go into in that field when they leave. thing is they have benefitted from the NHS in childhood free so should put something back into it.

It’s where I said…..’by making all dental graduates serve five years in the NHS before going into private practice and waive all dental training fees ‘ that’s where.
Happy to help.

Proves I am not infallible like you said in another post, I must have overlooked it but it goes to show at every opportunity you dig me up about anything and everything.

I think the thing a lot of you are missing is the contract for Dentists on the NHS is not helpful for them at all. You get £30 per patient appointment on the NHS no matter what you have to do, e.g. a regular checkup and a root canal pay them £30. If they have a private patient you're looking at probably double that for a checkup and way way more for any other treatment. It's on the government to sort out a new contract with dentists to allow them to get better fees for the work they do otherwise we'll be stuck in this bottleneck where there's not enough NHS spaces for the population.
For those saying they're greedy, think of it in your profession, why would you work for a low flat fee no matter the amount of time, effort etc that a job takes when you could instead go to another customer and make a decent profit for doing the same work?

I don’t doubt you, but that’s the problem with the system. The people wha can’t afford to go private or even find a dentist have to suffer.
But if you offer two services and one where dentists are employed by the NHS, let them run side by side and see the outcome.

Exactly, but the solution you are offering doesn't fix the problem. Keeping the contract the same and just forcing newly qualified dentists to be NHS dentists for 3+ years post graduating for reduced fees still doesn't offer an incentive for more NHS spaces in the community, and they will instead probably stop offering them entirely. The expense needed to take away the uni fees, subsidising £9000 for 5 years, as well as building these dental hospitals would be extreme. You're also then forcing people to travel further for their NHS dental work which will decrease uptake. I think you're also putting too much faith in a government to run this side of the NHS well when the medical side is falling apart. Realistically if you change the contract so the dentists get paid more per NHS patient, they'll open up more spaces and you save the government money on the upkeep of facilities.

What’s your option….?

Increase the amount per checkup slightly but offer extra money based on treatment provided, put these in bands based on how time consuming/complex they are as well as if extra things are needed for the procedure, so band A gets you X amount more, Band B slightly less etc.

More money obviously has to be spent somewhere but most dentists appear to have their own tame catalogue of ‘customers’ leaving no room for NHS patients so how are they going to fit them in, when they all seem to be claiming their books are full.
Even with the money they’re still going to have capacity problems.

There will also be another legion of pen pushers to sort out and validate payments, a never ending cost to the NHS

if they only did the treatments they did in the past and drop cosmetic work giving people teeth you can see from outer space when they smile they might have more time available.

Some are even doing Botox treatment apparently, as highlighted on the news.
Most people want a dentist occasionally, not constant check ups and advice on how to clean your teeth…..like said earlier doctors don’t have you in for a compulsory MOT or lose your place in the practice, you go when needed, threat is just pointless.

Will Hartlepool follow suit ?
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... ate=120424

I think the good folk of Hartlepool need to get their teeth into this one.
I'll get me coat.