I’m rubbish at seeing the dentists, its been several years and probably need to have quite a bit of work done. Been calling around to find a decent dentist, prices seen to vary hugely, and I have only managed to find one who is taking on ‘nhs’.

The nhs dentist appears to be 1/3 of the price of the private. Do I get 1/3 of the care and treatment? Can get an appointment next week so its not like there is a long wait and seem to have a few okay online reviews.

Do nhs dentists have shorter appointments or something?

Example – private – first examination £128 + £23 an xray, NHS £20 including 2 xrays….filling £160 to £320 vs £60 both within 1 mile of my house…

Plenty of really good NHS dentists out there, why pay more?

Only reason I could see is if you need an implant or some other complex work which they can’t provide on NHS.

IANAD, but from dentist friends it works out that you get a certain number of “tickets” a month for NHS patients. The tickets are worth a value so for example a check up is £15 (idk if it is i made this up) and you have a check up it’s one “ticket” they can claim back from the NHS. If you need root canal its like £xxx so its xxx/15= tickets so that might use up all their tickets for that month. So what they could do is spread your treatment out over a couple of months.

Long and short of it is that the NHS stuff is subsidized and therefore cheaper, but can take longer and wont cover aesthetic/non-necessary work e.g. whitening.

If you think you might need a lot of work it might be worth looking into a dental insurance plan for a year.

If you think you might need a lot of work it might be worth looking into a dental insurance plan for a year.

But surely they would give you a check-up first and the premiums be adjusted accordingly?

If you think you might need a lot of work it might be worth looking into a dental insurance plan for a year

You’ll probably find an insurance plan won’t take you on until any outstanding issues are sorted.

Denplan for example – The premiums depend upon the condition of your teeth on acceptance and will depend upon which band you fall into. Your dentist will advise on your premium after inspection. The patient must also be dentally fit on acceptance and have no immediate dental work necessary.

We have private dental plan that costs about £300/yr and that usuallyy covers 2 check ups, hygenist visit and for me a filling or two. Recently had an infection under a crown in an old root canal filling – all sorted under the plan, would have been hundreds otherwise.

Simple answer – go NHS for the routine stuff and you can always “upgrade” for specific issues if necessary.

Mine’s through work so I didn’t need a pre check.

But i agree with thecaptain, NHS if you can wait/find one and they will do private aswell usually so you can upgrade whilst you’re there.

I am the same as Dovebiker – costs us around £360 a year as I have more history (I have a couple of fillings and needed loads of work when all four wisdom teeth had to be removed) and they take all that into account.

maximum of £244.30.

My NHS dentist went private recently, offering to sign us all up to some insurance scheme. Didn’t make any sense financially, was 3x the price of just paying the private fees for check ups / hygienist etc (no fillings at 46 and don’t plan on having any).

The big difference is that an NHS dentist will only do treatment up the value of £244.30. If you need something that costs more that that then you might have to accept a lesser solution. However if you have a filling for example and pay £56.30 then any more fillings (or any other band 2 treatment) you need within the next two months won’t cost you anything.

Plenty of really good NHS dentists out there, why pay more?

This. I have spent years having expensive private treatments and am over it. NHS is just as good.

Edit: that’s not how it works Rockhopper. That £244 is the max price for that band of treatment. So in my case, I was quoted around £600 for a gold crown privately. Went to an NHS dentist and had it done for £244.

NHS is fine, go for it. They’ll only do necessary stuff on the NHS, enough to keep your mouth health, after that, cosmetic stuff etc, you’ll be paying private prices anyhow.

I’m not sure where you are getting this “theres plenty of NHS Dentists around”

Clearly you don’t live in the bit of the South I do.

I’m not sure where you are getting this “theres plenty of NHS Dentists around”

Clearly you don’t live in the bit of the South I do.

+1 for this bit of mid Wales. Waiting lists are long. I cunningly left sorting out a dentist until I had really bad toothache. Got to pay for root canal privately which was fun.

theres plenty of NHS Dentists around”

yeah sorry that’s BS.

there most definitly isn’t plenty, and if you find one- its 18months to get on the surgery books (north Lancashire here), this was the ONLY way to get any non emeregency treatment after moving here i was infomed. I’m facing the prospect of a crown on an old Root canal molar I had done on a Denplan plan in Scoland- I’m currently with a ‘MyDentist’ practice plan locally which even still is going to be in the region of £500 all in. I pay £15 a month and im on the ‘least’ problematic/healthiest patient banding.

Couldn’t find a local one that was taking on new patients so joined the one in the local Sainsbury’s, £99 a year for two check ups and two hygienists visits. Most of the prices are only marginally more than NHS with the exception of root canal and crown. Have found them to be a massive improvement over any NHS dentist I have had.

Luckily I’ve managed to get a NHS appointment. Have been looking at insurance yet to find one that covers pre existing issues. I have 3 baby teeth which have lasted nearly 40 years, only a matter of time till they have to come out 🙁

NHS Dentist all the way. My brother is one and has just bought the practice with the retired boss’s younger sister. Certainly more around up North.

NHS appointments are easy enough in glasgow I find.

NHS just as good as private – often it’ll be the same dentist

The problem (in the SE at least) is finding an NHS dentist who’ll take you.

If you can get one – use them

I hadn’t been to a dentist for years and I needed to go, after several years of
constant pain. I found an NHS dentist. There is a flat rate for a course of
treatment and it was either 25quid or 48quid.

They really liked stringing the treatment out, I had 4 teeth that needed
pulling, she had me in for xrays then another appointment to discuss options.
I think I had about 8 appointments. The dentist told me if there was anything
that was non NHS work I could pay for that privately.

I thought it was going to be a problem finding a dentist, I guess I was lucky
about the third or fourth dentists I called was OK with NHS patients.