Which? finds ‘NHS dentists’ not offering NHS appointments
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- Published: Tuesday, 16 June 2015 06:18
- Written by News Editor
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In recent research Which? found that three in ten (31%) practices turned down their researchers because they didn’t have availability. Of those that did offer them an appointment, 29% couldn’t see us within two weeks, with one surgery saying we could book but we’d be facing a wait of eight to nine months. Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, said: “We want the Competition and Markets Authority to step in and ensure that dentists put the existing rules into practice so that people can easily find out where they can get NHS dentistry.”
Which? undercover researchers called 500 dental surgeries advertising on the Government’s official website, NHS Choices, as accepting new NHS patients to see if they could book an appointment. They found the information on NHS Choices is often inaccurate as three in ten (31%) practices turned down our researchers because they didn’t have availability. Of those that did offer us an appointment, 29% couldn’t see us within two weeks, with one surgery saying we could book but we’d be facing a wait of eight to nine months.
They also found practices making people jump through unnecessary hoops before booking an appointment, like visiting the surgery to fill out forms. Some were even asked to pay deposits, and in one case we were told this was non-refundable if we missed the appointment, but neither of these practices is permitted under Government legislation. Long waiting lists for new patients were also an issue, and they saw one practice that had a list 13 pages long and another that predicted a wait of two years. Some practices also suggested our researchers pay privately to see a dentist, despite our fieldworkers specifically asking for an NHS appointment.
We repeated our research near the beginning of the new financial year to see if the information would improve when dentists got their new budgets, but we actually found an even worse picture. Nearly four in ten (37%) surgeries wouldn’t give us an NHS appointment and around a third (36%) couldn’t see us within a fortnight.
BDA response
Mick Armstrong, Chair of the British Dental Association, said: “The government remains committed to a byzantine system that has failed both dentists and their patients. These targets might suit a Whitehall spreadsheet but do not reflect the reality of millions of people receiving and seeking NHS treatment. From day one these arbitrary targets have proved a real obstacle for new NHS patients. Dentists often have more patients lining up than they have UDAs, but the UDA must come first. Successive governments appear to have been more attached to acronyms than to patients seeking care.
“When dentists ‘over perform’ and treat more NHS patients than they are allocated, that’s not ‘success’, and they pay for it out of their own pockets. Many would like to see more patients, but this is impossible within rigid contracts. Money being clawed back from dentistry is not being reinvested in dentistry. We have a shrinking budget that only covers 56 per cent of the population. For far too long oral health has been left out of the health debate, and this new evidence provides fresh impetus for government to reassess its agenda.
“Two watered-down versions of the UDA are now going into trials as a possible basis for a new dental contract. We want to see prevention at the heart of dentistry. We want real and agreed clarity for both patients and practitioners on what the NHS will cover, and at what cost. None of that will be possible until the UDA is consigned to the dustbin of history.”
Image by Jimmie - used under CC licence
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