Telford Cabinet member for health quoted over 10 times NHS rate for private dental work
The lack of NHS dental care provision in Shropshire saw a Telford councillor quoted over ten times as much to have work done privately.
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Telford & Wrekin councillor Kelly Middleton, Cabinet member for health, said that she rang five different dentists in Telford & Wrekin and was unable to get an NHS appointment.
After paying £60 for a private appointment she was then quoted £3,200 for dental work. Fortunately, councillor Middleton was eventually able to get an NHS appointment in Bridgnorth and is paying £306 for the same work.
“People are being left to suffer without an NHS dentist, it also has a big impact in how you feel about yourself,” said Councillor Middleton, speaking at the council’s health scrutiny committee meeting on Thursday.
“Even for people who are working that’s a lot of money (to go private). We have a lack of NHS dentists in Telford, you can’t get into one in my ward (Woodside) and had to go to Bridgnorth to reduce the costs.”
A representative from the Integrated Care Board said that the NHS Dental Recovery Plan had been released two weeks ago.
The plan includes a new Patient Premium scheme will provide additional payments to NHS dental practices for each new patient requiring treatment.
In the plan is initiatives to ‘improve the viability’ of treating NHS patients and an initiative to attract trained dentists back into the profession and to keep them in the job.
The Telford & Wrekin Council’s health scrutiny committee chairman Derek White said that they need to have dentist provision on their agenda.
“Many children are having to go to hospital which is effecting them,” said councillor White. “We really need this recovery plan.”
As part of the NHS Dental Recovery Plan dental teams will visit ‘under-served’ state primary schools, offering varnish treatments and advice.
The NHS also plans to make changes to dental care funding and contract models to better support ‘high-quality, personalised, and prevention-focused care’.
The scheme also aims to address dental workforce shortages by increasing undergraduate dentist training places in England.
Also included in the plan are golden hello payments which will offer £20,000 per dentist over three years requiring a commitment to NHS work in select locations. This will be provided for up to 240 dentists.
