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NHS dentistry RIP

paulfromcamden said:
Mate, they've said they're going to teach children aged 3-5 how to brush their teeth. What more do you want?!
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Perhaps one of these might help?

US20070094822A1 - Musical toothbrush - Google Patents

A toothbrush assembly comprises a toothbrush, a storage unit comprising an input, a memory for storing audio signals received via the input, and an output for transmitting or playing the stored audio signals. A variety of different embodiments of storage unit and toothbrush configurations are...
patents.google.com
 
Forty something years ago, the government of the day took advice from a distinguished Dental "expert", an academic who had never worked at the coal face.

His advice was that, with the great advances that were being made in Dentistry and Oral Hygiene, there would be fewer dentists needed in the future. As a result of this advice, two Dental Teaching Hospitals, Edinburgh, and The Royal Dental Hospital in London were closed.

There is now a chronic shortage of dentists. (see post #102)

Moral of the story?. Never trust the Civil Service to listen to the correct advice.
 
Our daughter has been living in London for 14 years. However, due to us still having the same NHS dentist we registered with in the 80s, part of her can never leave ;)
 
It's impossible to find an NHS dentist who will accept new patients in our area. The one we used to use, left the NHS a decade ago. We've had to use a private dentist since (not that one on principal). I had to have an extraction of a back tooth last year. The first extraction in forty years. I was "in the chair," for no more than 15 minutes. It cost me £287.
 
narabdela said:
Forty something years ago, the government of the day took advice from a distinguished Dental "expert", an academic who had never worked at the coal face.

His advice was that, with the great advances that were being made in Dentistry and Oral Hygiene, there would be fewer dentists needed in the future. As a result of this advice, two Dental Teaching Hospitals, Edinburgh, and The Royal Dental Hospital in London were closed.

There is now a chronic shortage of dentists. (see post #102)

Moral of the story?. Never trust the Civil Service to listen to the correct advice.
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Edinburgh Dental hospital is now Dental Institute. The Royal Dental Hospital was merged as the premises on Leicester Sq was woefully inadequate.
 
gintonic said:
Edinburgh Dental hospital is now Dental Institute. The Royal Dental Hospital was merged as the premises on Leicester Sq was woefully inadequate.
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The Edinburgh Dental Institute only offers a degree in Oral Health Sciences, and Postgraduate Degrees. Not a B.D.S.

As for the Royal, it depends on your point of view...

"The Royal Dental Hospital and School were founded in 1858/59 as the UK's first dental school. Despite being a leading school, because of government strictures it closed its doors in 1985. The building was taken over by a hotel".
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Royal Dental Hospital of London and School (1858-1985) - First to open - First to close - PubMed

The Royal Dental Hospital and School were founded in 1858/59 as the UK's first dental school. Despite being a leading school, because of government strictures it closed its doors in 1985. The building was taken over by a hotel. Not to be forgotten, however, a group of alumni ensured its memory...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Sunday breakfast TV feature on dentists. Candid response from chairman of their association. It’s all about the money. When a contract is so fundamentally broken why are we fiddling with details lobbing an extra £50 onto some treatments for example? It’s like paying doctors based on what’s wrong with you.

He claims a shift of focus to preventative dentistry would be cheaper, and way better for our oral health. Can’t these big thinkers cost it out, rip up the current contract and start again?
 
Jubal said:
Can’t these big thinkers cost it out, rip up the current contract and start again?
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What, in this country? HS2 will be complete before they'd managed to sort that out. Anything here takes 50 years, once they've had all their inquiries and papers and lunches out to discuss what colour pens should be in the receptions etc.
 
matt j said:
What, in this country? HS2 will be complete before they'd managed to sort that out. Anything here takes 50 years, once they've had all their inquiries and papers and lunches out to discuss what colour pens should be in the receptions etc.
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Yeah, far be it from me to expect those paid to think big actually do something. Silly me.
 
Mick P said:
Too many people complain about how tough we have it when in reality we are doing ok.

Possibly the regular moaners here are toothless midgets, in which case we should cut them some slack.
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Thanks, in part, to your own campaigning Mick, our Tory government are busy reversing any UK public health gains.

The slower increase in average height of five-year-olds in the UK compared with other countries, and the slippage down the global height rankings, was more or less continuous from 1985. We weren’t doing well, but it was not obviously linked to Conservative or Labour governments. But then, in the mid 2010s, something dramatic happened – the average height of five-year- olds went down. This is unlikely to be the result of ethnic mixing of the population.
www.theguardian.com

Britain’s shorter children reveal a grim story about austerity, but its scars run far deeper | Michael Marmot

Since 2010, our five-year-olds have been showing signs of reduced growth, a likely symptom of policies that have led to impoverished lives
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Mick P said:
Too many people complain about how tough we have it when in reality we are doing ok.

Possibly the regular moaners here are toothless midgets, in which case we should cut them some slack.
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The ”we” there is not inclusive. Those who are doing ok is becoming more and more exclusive while the number of those not doing OK is getting bigger and bigger.

The change from a society based on inclusivity to exclusivity was very much created and driven by Thatcherism. The rise in inequality, personal debt, poor working conditions etc, etc, are necessary consequences of that change.

The bottom line is that in any civilised society, especially one as rich as ours, everyone should be doing OK and by now we should be building on and improving that ok-ness for everyone.

We need to take a good hard look at why we’re going backwards instead.
 
no dentist taking new NHS registrations around here. Two dentists within walking distance of here, have very limited private apppointments - i am waiting for one.
 
What happens if someone can't see an NHS dentist, and they have nasty tooth pain which has been around for a coupe of weeks? Pain that wakes them at night. Let's say that they can't afford to go private.

What I'm really asking is, what happens when someone in that situation rings 911?

By the way, my friendly private dentist told me the other day that she'd love to have an NHS contract because they are very profitable. She said that there is guaranteed revenue growth built in. She said she'd tried many times to get one, but her postcode makes it hard (apparently NHS allocate them by postcode), and anyway she can't compete with large hedge fund financed operations like My Dentist (who benefit from scale economies.)

@gintonic How come you don't already have an NHS dentist? Have you recently moved?

When I was last at my NHS dentist I was waiting near the receptionist and I could hear the phone calls. Someone rang trying to get an appointment, but it turned out that he hadn't been to see them for two years, his account had been "archived" and they basically told him to do one. But they did say that if he was in bad pain he should call 911 "because it could be an infection and that could be serious."

The practice (My Dentist) won an NHS contract recently and was taking on new NHS patients. No longer. But it has been transformed -- it used to have about 5 dentist's names in the window -- now there must be about 20. It has become an NHS factory for drill and fill, all the people working there under very serious pressure to see more and more patients. The guy who I saw said it was his lunchtime, and that he had a problem because he was trying to speak to his GP on the phone but whenever she calls he's working. He said that he'd been bullied into seeing me . . .
 
got delisted by NHS after lockdown as I hadn't been. During lockdown I was seen as an emergency NHS patient when I needed a filling replacing.
 
ks.234 said:
The ”we” there is not inclusive. Those who are doing ok is becoming more and more exclusive while the number of those not doing OK is getting bigger and bigger.

The change from a society based on inclusivity to exclusivity was very much created and driven by Thatcherism. The rise in inequality, personal debt, poor working conditions etc, etc, are necessary consequences of that change.

The bottom line is that in any civilised society, especially one as rich as ours, everyone should be doing OK and by now we should be building on and improving that ok-ness for everyone.

We need to take a good hard look at why we’re going backwards instead.
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I cannot believe that that those not doing ok is getting bigger and bigger. EasyJet have just announced that flights to holiday destinations are booming and you don't take a holiday if one of your family has raging toothache.

You try to book a restaurant in my local eatery area, it's book well in advance or stay at home. Plenty of people have plenty of money but your problem is that those very people want to pay less tax and spend the money on themselves. If they can be persuaded to allow more government expenditure by raising taxes, then the things you cite will disappear but it's just not going to happen.

Cameron and Osbourne enjoyed an uninterrupted by term pushing austerity and were backed up by the electorate. Even Ed Balls started pushing for austerity, purely because it wins votes.
 
Mick P said:
I cannot believe that that those not doing ok is getting bigger and bigger. EasyJet have just announced that flights to holiday destinations are booming and you don't take a holiday if one of your family has raging toothache.

You try to book a restaurant in my local eatery area, it's book well in advance or stay at home. Plenty of people have plenty of money but your problem is that those very people want to pay less tax and spend the money on themselves. If they can be persuaded to allow more government expenditure by raising taxes, then the things you cite will disappear but it's just not going to happen.
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There is no necessary connection between spending and tax. Tax is a means of taking money out of the economy after it has been spent into it by government. Spending comes first, then comes tax. It is not the other way around. Spending is constrained, but not by tax.

Cameron and Osbourne enjoyed an uninterrupted by term pushing austerity and were backed up by the electorate. Even Ed Balls started pushing for austerity, purely because it wins votes.
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Yes. That’s the problem.
 
mandryka said:
What happens if someone can't see an NHS dentist, and they have nasty tooth pain which has been around for a coupe of weeks? Pain that wakes them at night. Let's say that they can't afford to go private. What I'm really asking is, what happens when someone in that situation rings 911? . . .
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Speaking anecdotally, 5 or so years ago I was in this situation. I rang three dentists described online as taking on NHS patients. In reality none of them were. So I gave up searching, and the third one agreed to get me in within 36 hours. The dentist was very good, looked at all the options, but was pressing to save the tooth. I demanded he take it out. He reluctantly obliged, and upon examination found the tooth had split and was compressing/trapping the nerve at the root. I think the cost was about 160 sobs, but the pain was such I would have paid a lot more. And what relief!

John
 
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