Election Year or Fear!

[Geoff Parkstone]

In relatively affluent Surrey I got tidays (non emergency) dental appointment within 2 days (ok, a cancellation appointment) and when I was in waiting room the receptionist was saying "booked solid for 2 months".

I need a root filling - appointment next Wednesday. No complaints here, but guess I'm lucky

[ramAnag]

In relatively affluent Surrey I got tidays (non emergency) dental appointment within 2 days (ok, a cancellation appointment) and when I was in waiting room the receptionist was saying "booked solid for 2 months".

I need a root filling - appointment next Wednesday. No complaints here, but guess I'm lucky

NHS or private? Had it been a genuine ‘painful’ emergency do you think you’d have been seen quicker?

[Andy_Faber]

NHS or private? Had it been a genuine ‘painful’ emergency do you think you’d have been seen quicker?

A private practise would have seen GP PDQ but of course it’s in their commercial interest to do so

[ramAnag]

A private practise would have seen GP PDQ but of course it’s in their commercial interest to do so

Which is part of the problem imo. For whatever reason, and Swale has touched on them, we have a situation where commercial interest now takes priority over compassion/health interests even where medical/dental matters are concerned.

It’s been happening for a while. About a decade ago I was unfortunate enough to need root canal while on holiday in southern Spain. I was seen within the hour, treated at an excellent German/Spanish practice and charged around €350 for the two necessary visits. About a year earlier I’d needed the same procedure (on a different tooth!) which I had done in Mickleover…the charge was the wrong side of £450. ‘Rip off Britain’ or just a loss of the values of decency and compassion that health providers should be synonymous with and a sign of the times?

[Geoff Parkstone]

"where commercial interest now takes priority over compassion/health interests even where medical/dental matters are concerned."

Not sure I quite get that one rA. The compassion towards and health interests of the patient remain the same whether a private payment is made or if it's a "free" treatment (not that it's free as such).

Dentists need patients one way or the other, so health interests are dealt with. It's just a question as to who is treated, rather than any lack of compassion.

If course anyone who pays privately for healthcare is one less patient for the NHS to deal with: and it's not like you opt out of NI payments when paying privately.

There is a symbiotic relationship between NHS and private healthcare - neither could survive without the other. I chose to pay for private healthcare insurance (exc dentistry) and have to date got little from it. That's my choice. Someone else might chose to spend their disposable income on beer, gambling, holidays etc etc. That's their choice. DobI think beer or holidays should be funded by the state? No...

[ramAnag]

"where commercial interest now takes priority over compassion/health interests even where medical/dental matters are concerned."

Not sure I quite get that one rA. The compassion towards and health interests of the patient remain the same whether a private payment is made or if it's a "free" treatment (not that it's free as such).

Dentists need patients one way or the other, so health interests are dealt with. It's just a question as to who is treated, rather than any lack of compassion.

If course anyone who pays privately for healthcare is one less patient for the NHS to deal with: and it's not like you opt out of NI payments when paying privately.

There is a symbiotic relationship between NHS and private healthcare - neither could survive without the other. I chose to pay for private healthcare insurance (exc dentistry) and have to date got little from it. That's my choice. Someone else might chose to spend their disposable income on beer, gambling, holidays etc etc. That's their choice. DobI think beer or holidays should be funded by the state? No...

I’m not really disagreeing with you, GP…and I take your point entirely about choice.
You, like me, have made appropriate arrangements to receive dental treatment via the NHS…once upon a time that was an easy thing to do and if we had toothache we could visit a dentist and usually receive very speedy pain relieving treatment.
That no longer seems to be the case. There now seems to be a severe shortage of NHS dental provision, quite probably - I don’t know enough to say with certainty - because of the shortage of funding which Swale referred to yesterday.
Tricky will probably blame immigration, especially Muslim immigrants, but there are very few, if any, Muslim immigrants where I live and yet the problem is still apparent and it’s no coincidence that the waiting room at my dentist now places far more emphasis on advertising a vast array of available and astonishingly expensive beauty treatments than it does on dental advice and remedies.

[Trickytreesreds]

I’m not really disagreeing with you, GP…and I take your point entirely about choice.
You, like me, have made appropriate arrangements to receive dental treatment via the NHS…once upon a time that was an easy thing to do and if we had toothache we could visit a dentist and usually receive very speedy pain relieving treatment.
That no longer seems to be the case. There now seems to be a severe shortage of NHS dental provision, quite probably - I don’t know enough to say with certainty - because of the shortage of funding which Swale referred to yesterday.
Tricky will probably blame immigration, especially Muslim immigrants, but there are very few, if any, Muslim immigrants where I live and yet the problem is still apparent and it’s no coincidence that the waiting room at my dentist now places far more emphasis on advertising a vast array of available and astonishingly expensive beauty treatments than it does on dental advice and remedies.

FFS, you are getting as bad as Swale. Turn the issue into a deflection tactic. Poor, very poor.
Forget my opinion then and push your Tory bias to one side. Try looking whats right under your nostrils, from the Medics themselves. GP'S-

Dr Gary Howsam, vice chair of the RCGP, said: "The real issue is that we have a huge shortage of GPs, and our workforce is no longer big enough to manage the needs of an ageing and growing patient population with increasingly complex needs. This was the case before the pandemic and it has only been further exacerbated by the events of the past two years."

A spokesperson for DHSC said there are "now nearly 1,500 more doctors in general practice than before the pandemic". But there's the equivalent of 1,622 fewer full-time GPs treating greater numbers of patients compared with 2015, with the average GP working nearly 20% fewer hours, for a total of 38.4 per week, than in 2000.

The NHS lost 743 GPs in the year from March 2021 to April 2022, according to the British Medical Association (BMA), and nearly half of current GPs plan to retire by 60, mostly due to burnout, a survey by GP magazine, Pulse, revealed. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow, age and become sicker, leaving GPs with 16% more patients, roughly 300, than they did in seven years ago.


NOW COUPLE IN THE FACT OF WHAT i TOLD YOU EARLIER-
They would rather not bother training our own people, but bring in outside help?
Thats a false economy and a ponsi scheme.

Sounds very familiar right across the board in the UK

[Trickytreesreds]

Which is part of the problem imo. For whatever reason, and Swale has touched on them, we have a situation where commercial interest now takes priority over compassion/health interests even where medical/dental matters are concerned.

It’s been happening for a while. About a decade ago I was unfortunate enough to need root canal while on holiday in southern Spain. I was seen within the hour, treated at an excellent German/Spanish practice and charged around €350 for the two necessary visits. About a year earlier I’d needed the same procedure (on a different tooth!) which I had done in Mickleover…the charge was the wrong side of £450. ‘Rip off Britain’ or just a loss of the values of decency and compassion that health providers should be synonymous with and a sign of the times?

Really?
So ask yourself this. If Germany has sucj a wonderful health service and ours is falling to bits. WHY?

How much of Germany's GDP is spent on healthcare?
Germany: health expenditure as a share of GDP 1980-2022 ...
In 2022, Germany spent 12.7 percent of its GDP on healthcare. The total expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP has increased since 1980.


Health funding data analysis

British Medical Association
https://www.bma.org.uk › nhs-delivery-and-workforce
10 Aug 2023 — OECD data shows that the UK spent around 12% of its GDP on health in 2020 and 2021, compared to only 10% in 2019.

Germans even pay less in prescription charges. So that balances out the slight GDP difference.

So why do we have monstrous waiting times?

I'll let you all list the reasons.
I'll start with piss poor staff structure of too many chiefs and not enough indians, with many stupid jobs/roles taking up resources.

[Andy_Faber]

Which is part of the problem imo. For whatever reason, and Swale has touched on them, we have a situation where commercial interest now takes priority over compassion/health interests even where medical/dental matters are concerned.

It’s been happening for a while. About a decade ago I was unfortunate enough to need root canal while on holiday in southern Spain. I was seen within the hour, treated at an excellent German/Spanish practice and charged around €350 for the two necessary visits. About a year earlier I’d needed the same procedure (on a different tooth!) which I had done in Mickleover…the charge was the wrong side of £450. ‘Rip off Britain’ or just a loss of the values of decency and compassion that health providers should be synonymous with and a sign of the times?

I tend to agree with you rather than GP, based only on personal experience