12 December 2011

Denied Root Canal Treatment

Dental advice wanted – denied root canal treatment

"I have a tooth with a 5-year-old root canal which is failing (infection underneath). My NHS dentist thinks I should have it redone but he doesn’t provide the service. He forwarded me to the region’s waiting list for treatment… after 4 months wait my dentist [...]

7 December 2011

Root Canal Treatment

Dental advice wanted – root canal treatment

"About a year or two ago I got a root canal on one of my first premolars. Everything’s fine, until about a month ago when most of the front side of the tooth chips off, nearly all the way to the gum. The back side [...]

21 September 2011

NHS dental treatment during pregnancy

Dental advice wanted – NHS dental treatment during pregnancy

I needed an emergency root canal filling having broken a tooth after falling when pregnant.  I was registered at a private practice but saw my dentist at his NHS clinic where he advised, due to my pregnancy I would be treated on the NHS.  [...]

27 June 2010

NHS Root Canal Treatment

A very interesting article in the Guardian yesterday "British dentistry is in a painful state" written by Patrick Collinson. He details his experiences wading through several dentists in London and Edinburgh in an effort to get an NHS dentist to deal with his painful tooth which needed root canal treatment.

So one [...]

29 March 2010

Dental Treatment in Ireland

It looks like dental care is taking a nosedive in Ireland. According to the Irish Independent newspaper dental patients in Ireland will have to have teeth extracted rather than properly repaired with fillings and root canal work because of dental funding cuts. Are we going back to the dark ages? It is ridiculous [...]

7 April 2009

What is a Root Filling

All teeth have roots, and canals within these roots. Different teeth have a different number of roots and canals.

Front teeth (incisors and canines) have 1 root and 1 canal. Side teeth (premolars) have 1-2 roots and 1-2 canals. Rear teeth have 3 roots and 3-4 canals (upper molars), or 2 roots and 3-4 [...]

7 April 2009

What is a UDA

A UDA is a “Unit of Dental Activity” undertaken by an NHS dentist.

A UDA depends on the type of work undertaken. A dentist is contracted by his PCT (Primary Care Trust) to do a set number of UDAs and dentists have to be within 4% of their targets. If dentists don’t achieve their [...]

7 April 2009

Extractions or Root Canal Fillings?

There are lots of stories in the press this week reporting that tooth extractions have soared by 30% in four years. What a surprise!

There is just no incentive for NHS dentists to do complex and time consuming work such as root fillings. In fact doing root canal work can actually penalise an NHS [...]

13 December 2008

40,000 patients a year go to Hungary

The Sunday Express article “Why Labour is at fault for Dental Farce” by Alison Little, discusses the failure of UK NHS dentistry and reports that 40,000 patients a year are now travelling to Hungary for dental treatment they can’t afford at home. Here is the link to this dental article www.express.co.uk/posts/view/75502/Why-Labour-is-at-fault-for-dental-farce

In the UK [...]