Dental charges in the UK
|
|
If you
have come into 'seered.co.uk' looking for information on dental charges, there are many
useful links here. However, this 'public interest' website is about far
more than dental charges. There are quite a few pages you could get your teeth into if you
are concerned by erosion of privacy, government snooping and how bureaucrats waste your
money.
So hang around for a while (at least until the anaesthetic wears off.....). The
index page lists the 20 most popular pages. The newest section is
about town planning - and how to make a few hundred thousand pounds if you buy the right
plot of land - and maybe if you know the right people. Look at these photos for example.
Adapted from a birthday card sent to the
author several years ago. Original illustration by rainbowcards. |
Did you know that new
surveillance technologies are being developed that might enable your dentist to implant a
chip in your tooth (no pun intended) and that this could then be used by governments to
track your movements? If you think this is science-fiction you should read about
microchipping car number plates!
If you are interested in how governments may soon be able to deploy covert surveillance
systems on a massive scale it is important you learn about these and other possibilities.
The implications for civil liberties and privacy are enormous. Please take time to read
the smart card surveillance page of this
website.
Also please email details of seered.co.uk to all your contacts: simply direct them to the
seered home page: there is a link there to the 'smart card' page.
Now lie back, have the injections and wonder what happened to living in a free country.
Being (over)charged for simple dental work
was one of the reasons why the 'consumer protection' section of this website is being
developed. Overcharging is widespread. If you have an example you might like to share, please email me. Information on charges is not often readily
available to people moving into an area. Locally based websites might be one way of
addressing this and similar problems. The topic is discussed on the top page.
A true story from several years
ago. I once went to the
Lyndhurst Surgery in Honiton ( a town near to my home in Devon) for some minor treatment.
They charged me £92 for two tiny fillings that took 23 minutes start to finish. This was
about twice what I would have expected to pay in the 'up-market hi-tech' practice I used
when I lived near London.
Another true story, this time from
Febuary 2004. A fellow folkie was fuming over having been charged £45 for an examination
that took a few minutes and then £80 for a small filling. Where was this? At the
Lyndhurst Surgery in Honiton!
The Lyndhurst dental
practice in High Street, Honiton, Devon.
I am quite happy to identify this dental
practice. Correspondence will be loaded soon and will include comments to the effect that
they were (still are?) poorly equipped compared to other practices I have known. Any
letters from their lawyers will also be published. Lyndhurst seem to have a marketing
strategy of attracting people with dental 'phobias' and almost encouraging their patients
to be afraid in order to offer them more reassurance! The dentist who treated me seemed
most upset when I said she could go ahead with the fillings with no anaesthetic injection,
and that I was not the least concerned by the pain. Maybe they just didn't want the type
of customer who just wanted a good job at a reasonable price. There is a website for dental phobia which some people might
find useful.
The Consumers' Association (publishers of Which? magazine http://www.which.co.uk) recently did a study of dental
costs. There was a huge range. Data should be made available on the Internet - as a start
you can have a free 30 day trial of the Which site.
Simple dental fillings should cost around £2 per minute. I was charged close to £4.
Surely, if people move into a new area, they should be able to look up 'dentists' on a
local Internet site, find people's comments, and thereby be able to make an informed
choice about where to register? After all, the Internet is all about sharing information.
I was recently charged £23 for two small fillings that again took 20 minutes, at an NHS
dentist in Seaton, East Devon. Cheap at twice the price! Rip-off seems too weak a term for
the Lyndhurst practice in Honiton. More recently, four small fillings cost me £40 for
over 30 minutes work, again on the NHS in Seaton.
|
|
At the other
end of the scale are practices operated by James Hull. These specialise in cosmetic work
and with patients who spend up to £100,000. He is quoted as saying "we are not a
drill and fill operation". People in the UK apparently spend less on their teeth than
in other countries - 0.3 of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the UK, 0.7% in the USA and
0.9% in Germany. Hull justifies his charges by citing the specialist nature of treatment,
and the range of hi-tech equipment utilised. The UK market for dentistry is worth £3.6
billion (£3600 million) per year or an average of £60 per person. Typing "james hull +dentist" into google will
tell you all you need to know about making money - Mr Hull started as a NHS dentist in
Wales in the mid 1980's and is now quoted as being worth around £58 million. He is also
quoted as number 60 on the 'midland
rich list'. |
Useful links to stories about dental
charges in the UK include the following:
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,915187,00.html
which is a story on the Guardian website dated 16 March 2003 and centred upon Consumers'
Association concerns about overcharging and lack of transparency. An article the following
week gave more details: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,11032,920241,00.html.
A link to the OFT report of January 2002 is
at http://www.oft.gov.uk (you need to search the site
for it). Quite why the OFT needs to give their pdf reports URLs so long that they defy
retyping is a mystery. There are numerous additional reports on Google and other search
engines - but apparently no scheme whereby you can move to an area, look up a local
'consumer action' webpage and see posted comments from local people saying what they think
(and can defend) about some local companies. This might be more useful for industries and
professions that are (in effect) unregulated.
A useful website centred around the dental
profession is based in Dorset (UK). It does not aim to give help with dental health
queries but does include a list of web addresses for dentists in UK and Ireland - a 'guide
to the dental internet', so say the authors. Another 'dental' site listed by some public
libraries and also on reputable medical websites includes links to a range of adult movies
- you have been warned! Click here if you must.....
and then click on 'useful links'. The site does have some genuine 'campaigning' links -
but nothing on dentistry!
There is also a section on dentists in a useful
general medical website published in the UK, with links to the British Dental Association's site.
A list of dental websites is maintained at http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc.asp?doc=9.
next page
back to top of section
back to home page