In a speech to the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth in September 1999 Prime Minister Tony Blair made the following promises:
- “Everybody will have easy access to an NHS dentist within two years”
- “Patients who phone the NHS Direct 24-hour advice phone line will be directed to an NHS dentist who is within convenient travelling distance of their home”
- “Out of hours cover will be provided by a local emergency dental service”
Blair did not deliver these promises and I have been astounded that the electorate did not hold him to account on such a fundamental commitment. Despite clearly having lied to the Labour conference and the nation Blair went on to win another general election.
In 2004 I arrived for a six-monthly dental check-up at the Gillingham Dental Practice (1 Lanark Villas, Gillingham, Dorset). Being self-employed I had taken the afternoon off work and lost half a day’s pay for this. The receptionist informed me that my dentist had left the practice and as an NHS patient none of the other dentists would see me. I asked why they didn’t telephone me to say my appointment had been cancelled and she just shrugged and said vaguely: “I think we sent out some letters…”. Sadly I didn’t receive one. Some weeks later my wife Louise, also registered with the same dentist, turned up for an appointment and was also refused treatment. She also did not receive any letter.
We were a family of two adults and two young children registered at an NHS dental practice (for which I believe they receive payment just for having us on their books) but unable to receive treatment. The interesting thing about Gillingham Dental Practice is that they were quite happy to point out that as NHS patients we were little better than scum. No apology was offered for the shabby way we were treated. If we wished to be seen privately then miraculously a dentist would find time in his schedule to see us, but as NHS patients they were too busy.
A phone call to the NHS Direct phone line confirmed that there were no dentists in our area who would take on NHS patients. Clear evidence that the Prime Minister’s promise was worthless. It took us six months and countless phone calls before we were able to find a dental practice that would treat us. In the end we found the Densworth House Dental Practice in Rodden Road, Frome, Somerset. This practice had an unenviable reputation locally but we weren’t in a position to be choosy. In our own experience over the past 3 years the biggest drawback of this practice is that the dental surgeons are newcomers to this country who speak English poorly. This means that it isn’t possible to have a meaningful conversation with the dentist, and they tend not to explain what they are doing. I have had check-ups and treatment where the dentist has uttered nothing except ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. Understandably our children find the uncommunicative dentists in their bare treatment rooms rather sinister. A far cry from the cheerfully-decorated walls and ceilings to distract children that I remember in the past. Surely this can’t be the best dental treatment that the NHS can offer, can it?
Last weekend I had toothache. It started as a niggling pain at bedtime on Friday, was painful on Saturday and very painful on Sunday. Monday was a public holiday so our dental practice was closed but when I got up on Monday morning the pain was unbearable. This was compounded by the fact that the next day we were due to go away on holiday. I phoned Densworth House practice and listened to a recorded message saying that they were closed until 8.30am on Tuesday but that emergency dental treatment could be obtained from the Somerset Dental Helpline. At 8.30am I telephoned the number provided to hear a message saying: ‘The Somerset Dental Helpline is closed’. What? Is that it? No indication of when they will open again, or if they have closed permanently. Of course as a scumbag NHS patient what right have I got to expect courtesy or information? I bet Tony Blair didn’t endure treatment like this.
I phoned NHS Direct. They could only offer me the same phone number for Somerset Dental Helpline. Try again after 9am and perhaps someone will be there, said the operator doubtfully. I phoned after 9am and was connected to an answering machine asking me to leave my name and number so that someone could call me back shortly. I left my details and waited. It was an encouraging sign that someone must have arrived to change the tape from ‘we are closed’ to ‘we’ll call you back’.
After 40 minutes I received the promised phone call. I explained my symptoms and was offered an 11.20am appointment with an emergency dentist in Preston Road, Yeovil, Somerset. Yeovil is over thirty miles from home so it is debatable whether a sixty-mile round trip fulfills Blair’s promise of a local emergency dental service but with raging toothache I accepted gratefully.
I arrived in good time for my appointment and was given a medical history form to complete. There were only three people waiting with me but as the minutes dragged by it became apparent that the appointment time was only a poor estimate. It was eventually my turn to receive treatment soon after 1pm. By this time we occupants of the hot, stuffy, windowless waiting room had become good friends. United by toothache, and with only trashy celebrity picture magazines to read (why do all dentists assume that their patients are unthinking morons?) and no water to drink, we exchanged stories and life histories as a means of passing the time, possibly as the occupants of bomb shelters did during WW2.
Finally I was ushered into the treatment room where a Mrs May was to be my dental surgeon. She briskly informed me that she wouldn’t send me packing with a bottle of antibiotics like most emergency dentists do. No, that was unprofessional. I would receive proper treatment from her, including extracting the affected tooth if necessary. All this before she had even looked in my mouth! In the event she took an x-ray of the affected area and decided to inject anaesthetic, drill out an old filling, and replace it with a temporary dressing. This would cure the problem, she said, for a month or two but that I should seek a more permanent remedy from my own dentist as soon as possible. I left at 1.30pm.
As I drove home the anaesthetic started to wear off and it became apparent that all was not well. The pain I had originally suffered from was still there but now it was more intense than ever. By the time I arrived home I was shivering and nauseous. The pain had become so intense that it seemed to have overloaded my brain. I was unable to think or speak clearly, my whole conciousness having been overwhelmed by pain. I went to bed and shivered under the duvet. For two hours I lay in my private hell, delerious and disconnected from the real world around me. Reading this myself now it seems over-dramatic yet at the time it was the worst pain I have ever experienced.
Louise phoned NHS Direct for advice on pain relief. They could only suggest paracetomol or ibuprofen, an impossibility since even the thought of taking a sip of water made me retch. Was there any chance that A&E at our nearest hospital (Yeovil again since the Blair government closed our local A&E department in Frome) could help? Apparently not. A&E will not treat patients with dental problems, even severe ones. They did say that our emergency dentist was contracted to provide a service until 6pm and as it was only 5.30pm they recommended that we phone for advice. We did and surprise, surprise it was an answering machine. We left a message and waited. At 5.45pm we phoned again and left another message. Finally at 5.57 the receptionist phoned me from her home. She had dialled in to check for messages and, hearing my call for help, phoned Mrs May who was also at home. It was disappointing that Mrs May, upon learning of the excruciating pain that she had caused me, did not have the decency to phone me herself. Instead she let the receptionist offer sympathy but no practical help. I was just left to endure the unbearable pain that Mrs May’s dentistry had caused me. Unable to sleep in the long hours of night I had time to reflect on how much faith we place in dentists. Was Mrs May really a dentist? I had seen no evidence that she was. I had just assumed that because she wore a white coat she knew what she was doing yet in my experience of that day’s treatment it appeared otherwise.
The following day I was waiting outside my own dental practice in Frome for them to open. They managed to squeeze me in for an appointment at 11.10am when I saw my own dentist. I explained what had happened and she examined my mouth. She told me that the infection (and consequently the pain that it caused) was in the gum and not the tooth so Mrs May’s drilling and filling had been unnecessary. Mrs May had failed to identify the real cause of my toothache. My dentist said that the antibiotics would soon start to cure the infection, to which I replied: “What antibiotics?”
“Didn’t the emergency dentist (Mrs May) prescribe antibiotics?”
“No.”
My dentist rolled her eyes and wrote me a prescription for penicillin. I suppose some professional code prevents a dentist from openly criticising another dentist’s work, but her face said it all. Clearly she thought that Mrs May was as incompetent as I did.
Over the following week the antibiotics have slowly eased the pain. I have made an appointment for the offending molar to be extracted. I just hope that in the future I don’t find myself sitting in a dentist’s chair with Mrs May waving her drill near my mouth.
Something strange is happening with the charging for medical prescriptions. It is widely known that the British Government’s deficit in income compared with its expenditure has caused The Treasury to explore all means of saving money and increasing the taxation of the electorate without actually taking the politically damaging step of announcing an increase in tax rates. I suspect that one area which is being exploited is prescription charging.