I need a dentist.

I’ve been lucky inasmuch as I’ve always had an NHS dentist. Or at least I did up until Covid when the surgery that I was with folded. Since then I’ve had no treatment and have lost two fillings. My mouth seems ‘stable’ if such a thing can be said- there’s no pain, infection etc that I’m aware of. I’m 62, male, living in Wales. I don’t think that I have septic breath!

I’ve been offered a plan from what was my surgery who now seem to have gone private, here:

“The plan focuses on prevention and maintenance and includes:
2 x Dental Health examinations per year
2 x Dental Hygiene appointments per year
Xray’s as clinically necessary
10% discount off private treatments
Eligibility to request assistance from the Worldwide Dental Emergency Scheme more details at https://www.scheme.wdeas.co.uk”

The blurb is here:https://signup.practiceplan.co.uk/Patient/Home/D5JD83

Interestingly (worryingly??) when trying to find prices for work required beyond what is included I only draw a blank but I might have missed it somewhere.

I have no idea if this plan/ offer is good, bad or indifferent. Cost is £17.85 pcm just for a poke about and a buff and polish it seems. I’ll know a bit more tomorrow after I’ve called in to the surgery.

I want to keep my teeth in my head, I really do.

So- advice please if you will. Cheers, Ambrose

I pay 50 quid per six monthly check up. Every time I go he tries to persuade me to have a particular old filling drilled out and replaced, it’s not giving me any grief. I happen to have two mates who are dentists, both dispute this diagnosis. I’m not sure whether the profit motive and healthcare sit comfortably together and with an electric toothbrush and a waterpic I don’t seem to need a polish.

I would have through that the practices website would have some guidance on prices for treatment.

If it’s not on the website, they’ll definitely have a price list available somewhere. Most places I visit have someone in place to speak to new patients and talk them through it.

Practice Plan are basically an administration entity. You pay them every month and the practice promise to see you in return for getting paid by Practice Plan. It’s good for you because you get access to regular appointments. It’s good for the practice because you go to them when you need treatment.

Practice Plan is charging you £215 for 2 checkups and 2 hygiene visits per year (probably one of each, twice a year) which is pretty reasonable for a private practice.

NHS band one is £26.80 (for a checkup) and you only get hygiene appointments on NHS is it’s clinically necessary. Most of the time, you be paying privately for the hygiene appointment anyway at say, £60 so it’s not really costing much more.

A check up on the NHS would probably get you 5 minutes in the surgery. A private appointment might be half an hour.

If you end up needing treatment, A treatment on the NHS might have to be done in 15 minutes for them to stay on target. Whereas a private appointment has no time limit so they might so the same treatment in 45 minutes. Same dentist, same nurse same surgery. Just less time pressure.

Imagine cleaning your bike. Yeah, it’ll be better than it was if you spend 15 minutes on it but if you’ve got 45, you’re probably going to do a better job.

I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference between NHS and private dental care apart from my pocket getting a drilling. They still want to get patients in and out sharpish to make more money.

I, just yesterday, have paid £175 for an appointment, x-ray and extraction at our local Bupa Dentist privately with no plan.  I was in the chair for nearly an hour all together.   They’re currenly offering new patient checkups and 2 x-ray for £49, don’t know the hygienist appointment cost as I didn’t see that.

I pay £17.50/month for Denplan, which includes two check-ups / hygienist appointments each year. I’ve needed one filling during the last 4 years, which was included in the package. They’ve also fitted me in at short notice for an x-ray when I bit down on stone in some food – random appointments and minor treatment like this don’t attract any extra bills.

Quite happy with the system as it’s set up at the moment.

Dental subscription like this is a bloody racket, same for vets.

Any chances of finding a dentist taking NHS patients in travelling distance OP? I was going 20 miles for my annual check up post-Covid, but luckily I’m on the books of the place just down the road now (there was a waiting list).

I got onto an NHS dentist this year – through some googling I found a downloadable spreadsheet(!)That was updated weekly showing available nhs place availability in dentists across the country.

It wasn’t particularly easy to find but worth doing a bit of a search for.

I was paying at private dentist (without plan) £60/65 for hygienist which took her 15-20 mins maximum from sitting down to walking out the door. To be fair she did a great job – polished them up pearly white too!
I had check up once yearly at about £30 .. took no more than 5mins.

My partner decided we needed to change dentist (bit closer) and get the monthly dental-plan which was around £18 pm with usual plan of 2x hygienist/check up etc . The scrape and polish lasted 5-10 minutes maximum, and aside from removing the odd coffee stain here and there they certainly didnt look polished.

We went back to original dentist .. will save around £50 yearly avoiding the plan.

No longer in a dental practice after ours went private. My wife is still NHS, but me, daughter and son don’t have a dentist.

We’re fortunate that my Brother is a dentist and does see the family if he can fit us in – it seems most of his wife’s side have also lost their NHS dentist.  When I’ve lost a filling, I’ve had good success with the OTC temporary filling stuff you can buy on line – it really lasts unless you eat sticky toffee (just like the normal fillings).

OP here. Many thanks for the responses folks. We called into the dentist today but the person involved with enrollment is on annual leave. I’m off work for a while soon so will have loads of time to get things sorted then I hope.

People generally massively underestimate the cost of keeping a dental practice open, staffed and legal / safe for patients.

The dearth of NHS practice is more to do with the level of NHS funding and the near impossibility of running a safe high quality practice that is also a viable solvent business using just the NHS dental contract as a primary business income.

Private £105 every 6 months (twice a year = £210) including dental hygienist (wash & polish) with 5 to 10 minutes poking in my mouth by the dentist.

The dental plan insurance whatever is available but the price is the same for me if I pay per visit.  I think they gave me discount or something the last time I had some filling because they know I keep up with my 2 visit every year for more than 10 years now.

However, the dental hygienist doesn’t like me much because I have smoke stain on my teeth … LOL!  Think she wants to charge me double or something but the dentist says no. LOL!

@Ambrose that seems a bit on the steep side for Wales! I live in stockbroker-belt Surrey and my excellent local private dentist’s fees are the same or slightly cheaper than the ones you posted.

We’ve all managed to get in NHS practices, but all different and 12-20 miles away. They’ve just changed to one annual check up, was 6 monthly until earlier this year.

Finger crossed it remains nothing more than check ups for a while.

I don’t have an NHS denist, but one benefit with private, is if your hygenist (they all seem to have mental issues) is a throbber, you can just flip them off and go somewhere else.

£27.50 per check up visit, NHS. 5 minute visit.

£47.50 for the hygienist 10/15 minutes.

Worth it as my teeth are happier when they are working rather than when they are broke.