This morning I received a letter from my dentist telling me my next appointment in October (made months ago after my last check-up) has now been cancelled and moved to May 2009. A six month extra wait will make it a year between check-ups. When I spoke to the receptionist she said it was down to the fact that two of their dentists had left and they had been unable to find replacements.
This cancelling and postponing of appointments has become more frequent over the last four or five years. As has the change in dentists. Twenty years ago, when I moved to Lincoln, I had no problem in registering with a dentist and seeing him or her every six months. Ten years ago I had no problems registering with a new practice after my previous dentist upped sticks and vanished. In the last five years, the situation has deteriorated.
The government would have us believe that they are improving NHS dental services, especially since they introduced new contracts back in 2006. In Lincolnshire things have got worse, because it's big and rural - travel is expensive and public transport almost non-existent. When the new contracts came in dentists left the system in droves. I seem to recall that the then minister in charge (possibly Rosie Winterton - another characterless non-entity from the political classes) claiming it would all be a success, despite the fact that something like 10% of dentists had quit the NHS.
Looking at the newly-released figures from the NHS itself, it appears that despite the fact that 'the number of dentists has increased in every SHA between 2006/07 and 2007/08' and 'that in England, the population per dentist has decreased between 2006/07 and 2007/08 decreasing from 2,518 to 2,439', it is now becoming almost impossible to register with an NHS dentist. Even when you are registered, your troubles still aren't over - you may end up waiting a whole year for an appointment.
It's no wonder that millions of people - adults and children - are not going to a dentist at all. Again, the government's own figures show this decline: 10 million fewer adults saw a dentist in the 24 months up to March 2008 than in the two years leading up to March 2007; and 198,000 fewer children for the same periods. Mind you, the NHS managed to increase its revenue from those patients by £56 million. Pay more, get less is New Labour's strategy.
The system isn't working properly and it's falling apart.
This cancelling and postponing of appointments has become more frequent over the last four or five years. As has the change in dentists. Twenty years ago, when I moved to Lincoln, I had no problem in registering with a dentist and seeing him or her every six months. Ten years ago I had no problems registering with a new practice after my previous dentist upped sticks and vanished. In the last five years, the situation has deteriorated.
The government would have us believe that they are improving NHS dental services, especially since they introduced new contracts back in 2006. In Lincolnshire things have got worse, because it's big and rural - travel is expensive and public transport almost non-existent. When the new contracts came in dentists left the system in droves. I seem to recall that the then minister in charge (possibly Rosie Winterton - another characterless non-entity from the political classes) claiming it would all be a success, despite the fact that something like 10% of dentists had quit the NHS.
Looking at the newly-released figures from the NHS itself, it appears that despite the fact that 'the number of dentists has increased in every SHA between 2006/07 and 2007/08' and 'that in England, the population per dentist has decreased between 2006/07 and 2007/08 decreasing from 2,518 to 2,439', it is now becoming almost impossible to register with an NHS dentist. Even when you are registered, your troubles still aren't over - you may end up waiting a whole year for an appointment.
It's no wonder that millions of people - adults and children - are not going to a dentist at all. Again, the government's own figures show this decline: 10 million fewer adults saw a dentist in the 24 months up to March 2008 than in the two years leading up to March 2007; and 198,000 fewer children for the same periods. Mind you, the NHS managed to increase its revenue from those patients by £56 million. Pay more, get less is New Labour's strategy.
The system isn't working properly and it's falling apart.
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