Are false teeth the new norm as the cost of dentists soar?
Should we just be grinning and bearing it when it comes to our teeth or is investing in false teeth the new norm? Our NHS is still free at the point of access, but when it comes to our pearly whites, false or otherwise the issue is not so much the payment but the fact you cannot actually access the treatment you need.
Portsmouth has people rooting around for a dentist and being added to a waiting list higher than a mountain. The British Dental Association says patients are choosing to have teeth removed as it is cheaper than trying to save them with only a third of adults and 44% of children having seen an NHS dentist in the past two years.
Soon we will be conforming to the stereotype held by our American
cousins of having disgusting and degrading teeth.
A stereotype that used to hold no water given we were ranked 4th in world dental health (America is ranked 9th, in case you were wondering). Dentists are rarely taking on new patients and that is a major problem. It has the same stumbling block the NHS has: staff retention.
Horrifyingly, 21% of people who couldn’t get an NHS dentist appointment resorted to a DIY job on their teeth. Did you think in 2023 we would see less well-off people resorting to dangerous DIY jobs on their own teeth to lessen their own pain, like some brutal barbershop from a bygone age? Any toothy treatment needing immediate action means have to raid your already depleted savings or, you could follow Danielle Watts example who extracted 13 of her own teeth as she could not find an NHS dentist and couldn’t afford a private one either.
She then ‘crowd funded’ £2,500 for treatment to give her back a mouthful of teeth.
The same scary solutions are happening with other healthcare issues with patients stuck waiting for months for hip replacements resorting to crowd funders so they can go private.
There are lots of problems with dentistry, including the same retention problem that the NHS has with staff feeling undervalued who either quit their chosen profession or go overseas.
But for dentists, it is compounded by a 2006 contract which makes it near-impossible for them to balance the books for NHS patients. Dentistry has always been a footnote in our health services.