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Complaints about poor NHS dental services rise 66% in five years (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 years ago by shish_mish@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[+] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] clara@feddit.uk 7 points 2 years ago

yeah people i talk to don't seem to get what's coming. like, they haven't had the misfortune of a medical emergency in their life, and so they've never actually experienced how bad the service provision is getting. but not just for healthcare, it's for every service.

me personally? i'm saving up that money for sure. not for the next emergency, oh goodness no. i'm going to use that savings pot to leave this island for good. ideally before i get my next medical emergency. selfish? yep, you bet! 🙂

but, i am fundamentally sick of living in a place where we pay all this money and get little service to show for it. for me, one of these two options is fine:

somewhere where i pay low tax and rightfully get poor service.
somewhere where i pay high tax and get premium quality of service.

one or the other i am fine with, preferably option 2. but what we have in the uk is the downside of both of these options.

bit of a tangent i know, but...

rather than national or local governments fix any of this, they've instead embarked on massive campaigns to massage the statistics, through changing the measuring sticks used to assess service quality across the board, and in doing so, hide all the problems. this extends to water standards, and unemployment statistics, and cancer waiting times, etc etc.

don't even get me started about the filthy liars who do the passenger rail statistics 💩

[+] nexguy@lemmy.world -22 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I guess the only upside to privatization is higher quality due to competition.

[–] Rhaedas@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago

Competition is no guarantee of improvement of product or service. Often it just ends up in a monopoly where both consumer and workers get burned while they're told they are getting the best.

[–] lmaydev@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Pre austerity the NHS was absolutely top notch.

As healthcare is a captive market they tend to focus more on cost which can lead to worse outcomes.

Just look at our private prisons, care homes and trains.

You can literally see what privatisation has done in other areas.

[–] Oneeightnine@feddit.uk 4 points 2 years ago

I feel like this has been a growing concern since the NHS was founded all those years ago. The last 14 years certainly haven't helped, but this is far from a Tory Austerity issue.

Consecutive governments seem to have decided that access to quality dentistry should be the preserve of those willing to pay for private clinics, and the rest of us can make do, or better yet; skip the dentist entirely.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

“Poor dental care leaves patients frustrated, in pain and out of pocket,” said Rob Behrens, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman.

The ombudsman is receiving about 100 calls a week from people worried about poor treatment, their inability to access dental care on the NHS, or being removed from a practice’s list.

In another upheld complaint, a woman suffered a burn inside her lower lip while having root canal treatment at a dental surgery in Birmingham.

“More and more people are feeling so dissatisfied with the service from, or access to, their NHS dental practice that they are having to reach out to organisations like ours for resolution, such as an acknowledgment of the issue, an apology or financial reimbursement,” Behrens said.

The British Dental Association, which represents the profession, said the rise in complaints “reflects the huge pressure practices are under and the absence of any meaningful action from government”.

Eddie Crouch, the BDA’s chair, accused Rishi Sunak of failing to fulfil a pledge that he made when running for the Tory leadership to “restore” NHS dentistry through a five-point plan, which “will be activated on day one”, and which included reviewing dentists’ contracts.

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