Fillings before fillers!
Patients demand dental treatment as surgeries cash in with Botox for £400
NHS dentists are facing a backlash for selling Botox and lip fillers for up to £400 while patients struggle to get their teeth seen to.
An ever-worsening appointments crisis has seen some desperate patients queueing from 4am for dental treatment.
But the Mail found practices nationwide selling aesthetic procedures, including one offering a ‘facial slimming treatment’.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the Tax Payers’ Alliance, said: ‘When patients are scrambling to get any available place for basic dentistry, they’ll wonder how there are so many available slots for cosmetic treatment.
‘Provided the basics are provided for taxpayers, surgeries ought to be able to seek additional revenue sources. But the first priority is to ensure that good-quality dentistry is availa
‘Private work keeps lights on’
ble to adults and children in every corner of the UK.’
Twyford Dental Care, in Berkshire, has ‘some funding’ for NHS patients after ‘basic’ services. But patients there can get lip filler for £400, and even a ‘facial slimming treatment’ using a muscle inhibitor for £1,000. All Smiles Dental Care in Essex is another NHS provider that offers treatments such as dermal fillers for £250 a go.
West Kensington NHS Dental Care offers both Botox and dermal fillers for up to £350 apiece, alongside Health Service treatments. Some clinics which boasted of taking on new NHS patients, such as Wandsworth Dental Centre, sell Botox for as little as £150.
Dentists and patient advocacy groups say dentists themselves aren’t to blame for the situation. Mark Jones of campaign group Toothless In England said: ‘Patients in desperate need of dental treatment will rightly feel aggrieved by seeing local services being withdrawn in favour of cosmetic procedures.
‘[But] successive governments have failed patients, failed the dentists and failed the NHS by not ensuring adequate financial reward is embedded within the current dental (GDS) contract.
‘Dental practices can hardly be blamed for exploring markets where offering new services makes financial sense.’
Shawn Charlwood, chairman of the British Dental Association’s general dental practice committee, said years of underfunding meant more and more NHS dentists were turning to private work to ‘keep the lights on’.
‘This isn’t the 19th century,’ he said. ‘ Ministers shouldn’t be expecting any health professional to operate like a charity.’
The Department of Health said 1.7 million more adults and 800,000 more children saw a dentist last year compared to 2022.
A spokesman highlighted the Government’s £200 million ‘dental recovery plan’ which will offer dentists cash incentives to take on new NHS patients and provide £ 20,000 golden hellos to get dentists working in so- called ‘dental deserts’.