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29 May 2012

Dental patients missing out on NHS treatment

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The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has warned that up to half a million patients may be paying for private treatment unnecessarily every year.

The OFT investigation, launched in September 2011, found that:

• 39 per cent of dental patients in the last two years had seen no leaflets or posters at their surgery giving information about NHS charges

• 56 per cent of dental practices that provide some private dental services do not display private fee information at reception

• 82 per cent of dental patients who recently received a course of dental treatment that incurred a charge did not receive a written treatment plan.

Paying too much?

The OFT report commented: “We are particularly concerned to find that around 500,000 patients each year may be provided with inaccurate information by their dentist regarding their entitlement to receive particular dental treatments on the NHS and as a result be require to pay more to receive private dental treatment unnecessarily”.

There was a particular problem when patients received a course of treatment involving both NHS and private funding. The OFT called on the NHS and the General Dental Council (GDC) to “be far more proactive in identifying and pursuing formal, robust and timely enforcement action against such instances of misconduct where appropriate.”

OFT Chief Executive John Fingleton said “our study has raised significant concerns about the UK dentistry market which need to be tackled quickly in the interest of patients. All too often patients lack access to the information they need, for extample when choosing a dentist or getting dental treatment.”

Two in ten patients who had joined a dental payment plan said they had felt pressurised by their dentist to sign up.

Big business

The amount spent on dentistry in the UK has risen by around 90 per cent over the decade to 2009-10. It is now valued at around £5.73bn a year, with NHS dental treatment accounting for approximately 58 per cent of that.

Greater competition in dentistry should be the aim of a reformed NHS contract, and the Department of Health should consider a system where NHS dental payment follows the patient, the OFT concluded. The current system was found to insulate those practices with an NHS contract from competition, undermining innovation in the market.

The report also called for the GDC to make dentists, with limited exceptions, put right at no cost to the patient any dental treatment – NHS or private – that fails within the first year, and also to make it easier for patients to complain.

In 2003 the OFT called for patients to be able to book appointments with dental hygienists without a referral from a dentist first. In its latest findings it said: “the GDC has provided no compelling explanation for the delay in implementing the requisite reforms. The OFT considers this delay to be unjustified”.

The GDC said in a statement: “our current rules were put in place to protect patients by making sure those who treated them are sufficiently skilled and qualified .. we are taking evidence from all interested stakeholders. We have had around 600 responses already on this issue. The aim is to collect solid evidence of any impact on patient safety.”

According to research by the World Health Organisation global oral health programme, England’s average number of decayed, missing and filled permanent teeth is comparable to the with the best in Europe at 0.7 – the same score as Germany and Denmark. A separate study found Scotland had an average of 0.7 as well.

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