Undercover Investigation reveals Inflated Prices for NHS Dentistry
An undercover investigation has revealed that some patients are paying far too much for NHS dental treatment.
According to NHS guidelines and NHS dental leaflets, patients should pay a maximum fee for dental treatment and fees are banded according to the complexity of the treatment. The maximum fee charged for dental treatments that are available on the NHS should be £204, with fee recently increasing to this figure from £198.
An undercover report for the Channel 4 documentary series, Dispatches, found that some patients are paying up to £500 more than the maximum fee for NHS treatment. The report also showed that many dentists are not offering scale and polish treatment as well as dental examinations and are charging additional fees if patients ask for a cleaning treatment. Under the tiered system, a scale and polish is a Band 1 treatment and this means that it should be available free of charge with a check-up.
Three patients were told that they would have to pay for a scale and polish treatment separately as a private treatment and the reporter was told that he had to pay up to £725 for root canal work and a crown, however, as both of these treatments are Band 3 treatments, they therefore should have been available for the maximum fee, which was £198 at the time.
Dentists say that the current payment system is not working and they have called for a new system to be introduced. The coalition government have already said that they will change the system and new pilot programmes are due to be introduced this summer. A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the current dental contract will be replaced with a fairer, more efficient and effective system.
Join this Discussion