Latest news with #FairfieldHouseDentalSurgery
Metro
3 hours ago
- Health
- Metro
NHS forces dentist to repay £150,000 'because his patients are too healthy'
A dentist says his surgery is being forced to pay £150,000 back to the health service effectively because his patients 'are being looked after better'. Rob Mew, who owns Fairfield House Dental Surgery in Exmouth, Devon, says his practice has around 19,000 NHS patients – and is one of the few left in the county still taking any. The NHS dentistry payment contract requires practices to carry out a set number of check-ups or treatments, which are scored as Units of Dental Activity (UDA) and tallied up. For example, a check-up is worth one UDA, while a filling is worth three. Speaking to The Mirror, Rob said his surgery has been ordered to repay £50,000 a month over three months despite having an all-time high number of patients on its books. He told the newspaper: 'We are being penalised for preventing patients requiring more UDAs. 'The clawback is for not doing enough UDAs but when patients are being looked after better they don't have as much need for dental work.' Rob said his surgery carries out free outreach work in the local community to improve dental health. It also gives patients a check-up every year, whereas many other clinics call the bulk of their patients back every two years. He warned the NHS dentistry funding model is driving dentists away from the public sector, saying Fairfield House is only able to carry on as an NHS practice out of 'good will'. Devon has been described as one of several 'dental deserts' in the UK where access to NHS dental care is severely limited. Last year's GP Patient Survey found 28% of patients registered with an NHS dental clinic could not get an appointment when they tried, compared to an England-wide average of 16%. The government has admitted that it's currently 'less cost effective' for dentists to carry out complex treatments like crowns and bridges and has pledged to 'overhaul the dental contract'. Plans set to be unveiled today will reportedly include a proposal by ministers that NHS dentists are given enough money to provide a set number of unscheduled appointments. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: 'This government inherited a broken NHS dental system but we are getting on with fixing it through our 10 Year Health Plan. 'We have already begun the rollout of 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments, a 'golden hello' scheme is underway to recruit dentists to areas with the most need and we are reforming the NHS dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists – including introducing tie-ins for those trained in the NHS.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Elderly woman dies after waiting 14 hours for ambulance following fall MORE: 'I made the first ready meals for supermarkets – now I fight deadly fake food' MORE: Doctor jailed for 'unnecessary genital exams' on teenage patients
Daily Record
10 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Record
Dentist fined £150,000 for keeping patients' teeth too clean
"With these most vulnerable patients with high needs it's really tricky for the practice to to make that work [financially]." Britain is facing a hidden dental disaster as kids are needing multiple teeth removed at their first ever appointment. NHS dentist Rob Mew revealed the shocking cases he has encountered after opening his doors to one new child patient every Thursday, reports the Mirror. The Mirror travelled to Devon, one of Britain's worst 'dentistry deserts' as part of theut Dentisrs for All campaign. Our sister site visited Fairfield House Dental Surgery in Exmouth which is one of the few in Devon still seeing NHS patients. Owner Rob passionately believes in the NHS and its founding principle that it should care for patients from "cradle to grave". However, that is the only reason his practice still treats NHS patients, as it could earn hundreds of thousands of pounds more going private. Rob has been fined £150,000 by the NHS in a funding "claw back" effectively for maintaining his patients healthy teeth through regular check ups and preventative work. It is an example of the widely discredited NHS dental payment contract which is causing dentists to quit the health service in their droves to see only private patients. Every Thursday, Rob opens his NHS books for local children, many of whom have gone years without a check-up. Some have never been seen at all. Rob, who has three kids of his own, aged ten, eight and four, said: "That's one of the reasons I do it because I have young children but it's quite emotional. We were seeing four and five year olds who had so much decay we just had to send them to hospital to get extractions. There's such a backlog of sending these kids to have general anaesthetic to get the teeth out so we're trying to maintain them until they get their teeth extracted. 'One of the dentists saw a seventeen year old who hadn't seen a dentist in ten years and needed 28 fillings. You've got really emotional parents that are feeling really guilty that they have got themselves into this position. One of our nurses said she couldn't work on that list because it was too upsetting because she has kids of a similar age. It's a really sad situation.' Rob's practice, Fairfield House Dental Surgery, has been serving patients for over 100 years. It offers free supervised tooth brushing in schools, and sends its team out to breastfeeding and toddler groups to teach parents about oral health. Rob, 43, said: 'We're blessed with a group of patients who've been with us for a long time, some have been coming here for more than 50 years. So that's why I'm still with the NHS because it feels like the right thing to do, to keep going for them. It's a kind of cradle to grave service which is what the NHS was supposed to be. But that's the only reason we're doing it - out of good will.' Why is top dentist being 'fined' £150,000 for keeping his patients' teeth too healthy? Rob Mew owns a rare example of a thriving NHS dental practice in the middle of a dental desert. Fairfield House Dental Surgery employs ten dentists and does free outreach work in the local community to improve oral health. Despite all this, Rob's being forced to return £150,000 in NHS money, as the surgery had not carried out enough Units of Dental Activity (UDA). It was having to pay £50,000 a month over three months. UDAs are the metric used by the NHS in its dentistry payment contract which has been deemed 'not fit for purpose' by Parliament's Health and Social Care Committee. Under the current deal, practices must carry out a set number of Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) every year or face financial penalties. The contract requires practices to agree to perform a set number of UDAs - and they are penalised if they come in below or above this. A check-up is worth one UDA while giving a patient a filling racks up three UDAs. Rob told the Mirror: 'We are being penalised for preventing patients requiring more UDAs. We have £150,000 'claw back' this year but we have 19,000 NHS patients which is more than the practice has ever had. The clawback is for not doing enough UDAs but when patients are being looked after better they don't have as much need for dental work.' Fairfield surgery gives his patients a check up every 12 months whereas other practices call lower risk patients back for check ups every two years. Rob said: 'We are seeing them yearly and that's one UDA. We are preventing loss of tooth. A GP practice is paid for how many patients they have on their list. That's how they should be funding dentistry.' Rob says between five and ten people call the practice every day desperate to be seen by an NHS dentist. He has taken on as many as he can but has just started a waiting list. He said: 'We have got patients travelling to be seen here from as far away as north Wales, Manchester and Sheffield. "The NHS dental contract in England only funds enough for half the population to be treated so these patients have moved away but can't get a dentist. And the Exmouth population is exploding and we have a load of new housing but no more dentistry money to treat the people in those houses.' A key Mirror campaign demand is reform of the controversial NHS payment contract which disincentivises dentists from treating the patients who need it most. Dentists get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving the practice treating NHS patients at a loss. Last week the Government published its Ten Year Health Plan which pledged that "by 2035 the NHS dental system will be transformed" - but the British Dental Association insists contract reform must happen much sooner. Rob said: 'With these most vulnerable patients with high needs it's really tricky for the practice to to make that work [financially]. 'We had a family last Thursday with three kids and they had never been seen by a dentist. There was decay everywhere and they clearly need a lot of work and the parents are saying we haven't been able to be seen anywhere. And they're just tired because they've been calling around practices trying to get in and it kind of gets put on the back burner. 'We had a 14 year old girl come in a couple of weeks ago and she had four crowns put on her back teeth. And you're thinking, if we hadn't handled that soon she would have a couple of back teeth missing and then a lower denture.' Dental surgeries are being squeezed by soaring costs, with Fairfield House Dental Surgery now scrambling to raise £30,000 just to buy a new dentist's chair. Rob has worked in the NHS in some form for 28 years, starting at the age of 15 in a hospital kitchen. He added: 'I've got a lot of good will towards the NHS so yeh I try my best to make it work.' But NHS dentistry cannot rely on good will alone. The British Dental Association (BDA) has told the Public Accounts Committee the UK Government is propping up NHS services by relying on practices delivering care at a loss - fuelling an exodus of NHS dentists into lucrative private work. Figures from the BDA show a typical practice loses over £40 for every set of NHS dentures it fits, and £7 for each new patient exam. A damning report from Westminster's Health Select Committee branded the state of NHS dentistry as 'unacceptable in the 21st century'. And under the current NHS contract, dentists are restricted by quotas,limiting how many patients they can see and procedures they can carry out each year. To make matters worse, the Tories have slashed funding in real terms for over a decade. England's £3billion dental budget now only stretches far enough to treat half of the population. This week, ministers are expected to reveal long-awaited details on plans to finally reform the system. Labour pledged to overhaul the dental contract before the last General Election, but there are serious doubts about whether meaningful change will happen in this Parliament, or whether the Treasury will cough up the cash needed for real reform. It's understood the UK Government will announce new plans on Tuesday aimed at reversing the current system, one which discourages dentists from taking on patients who need complex care. Care minister Stephen Kinnock, who has responsibility for dentistry, told the Mirror: 'It isn't right that it's less cost effective for dentists to take on patients who need more complex and extensive treatments like crowns and bridges.'This is why this government will overhaul the dental contract to make it more attractive to offer NHS dental care, especially for those who need it most. As we deliver on the Plan for Change, we're fixing NHS dentistry to make it fit for the future.' The Government's announcement will also include confirmation of 700,000 extra urgent and emergency dental appointments this year. Officials say these emergency slots will become part of standard NHS provision, and that practices will be paid separately to deliver them, alongside routine check-ups. Devon worst 'Dental Desert' It's now harder to get an NHS dentist in the South West of England than anywhere else in the UK, with Devon emerging as one of the country's worst so-called 'dental deserts'. New figures from the annual GP Patient Survey show that just 72% of people with an NHS dentist in Devon managed to get an appointment, way below the national average of 84%. Survey responses were grouped by regional Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) which include NHS bodies, local councils and voluntary organisations. The One Devon ICB is responsible for the health of the population in the county. Among people who were already in with an NHS dentist, Devon saw just 72% of people successfully get an appointment. In the wider South West region this was 74% while for England as a whole it was 84%. Of those who attempted to get an appointment at a practice they had not been seen at before, only 14% were successful in Devon. This compared to 19% in the South West region and 33% as the average for England. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. The big caveat is that many will not have tried to get an appointment if they thought they had no chance. The data shows only a minority of dentists are taking on new adult patients, and in Devon and the South West, hardly any are. British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch said: 'This shows why the government is right to commit to major surgery for NHS dentistry, rather than mere sticking plasters. But we need pace. This service is on the critical list, and demoralised dentists are walking away every day this contract remains in force. If we don't make a break in this Parliament there may not be a service left to save.' A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: 'This government inherited a broken NHS dental system but we are getting on with fixing it through our 10 Year Health Plan. 'We have already begun the rollout of 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments, a 'golden hello' scheme is underway to recruit dentists to areas with the most need and we are reforming the NHS dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists - including introducing tie-ins for those trained in the NHS."
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Dentist being fined £150K by NHS for keeping patients' teeth too healthy
A Mirror special report from one of Britain's worst dental deserts exposes an NHS system 'not fit for purpose' and causing an exodus of dentists going private Britain has a hidden oral health crisis with children who've never seen a dentist needing multiple teeth removed after their first appointment. NHS dentist Rob Mew today reveals the upsetting cases he has encountered since opening his books to new child patients every Thursday. The Mirror came to Devon - one of Britain's worst 'dentistry deserts' - for the first of a series of special reports for our Dentists for All campaign. We visited Fairfield House Dental Surgery in Exmouth which is one of the few in Devon still seeing NHS patients. Its owner Rob believes passionately in the NHS and its founding principle that it should care for patients from 'cradle to grave'. But that is the only reason his practice still treats NHS patients. It could earn hundreds of thousands of pounds more going private. Rob is currently being fined £150,000 by the NHS in a funding 'claw back' effectively for keeping his patients too healthy with regular check-ups and preventative work. It is an example of the widely discredited NHS dental payment contract which is causing dentists to quit the health service in their droves to see only private patients. Every Thursday the practice opens its NHS books to local kids who have not seen a dentist in years - and in some cases have never seen one. Rob, who himself has three children aged ten, eight and four, said: 'That's one of the reasons I do it because I have young children but it's quite emotional. We were seeing four and five year olds who had so much decay we just had to send them to hospital to get extractions. There's such a backlog of sending these kids to have general anaesthetic to get the teeth out so we're trying to maintain them until they get their teeth extracted. 'One of the dentists saw a seventeen year old who hadn't seen a dentist in ten years and needed 28 fillings. You've got really emotional parents that are feeling really guilty that they have got themselves into this position. One of our nurses said she couldn't work on that list because it was too upsetting because she has kids of a similar age. It's a really sad situation.' Fairfield House Dental Surgery has been running for over 100 years. Rob became a partner in 2012 before becoming owner when another partner retired in 2017. The practice does free supervised tooth brushing at local primary schools as well as sending practitioners to breast feeding and toddler groups to educate parents. Rob, 43, said: 'We're blessed with a group of patients who've been with us for a long time, some have been coming here for more than 50 years. So that's why I'm still with the NHS because it feels like the right thing to do, to keep going for them. It's a kind of cradle to grave service which is what the NHS was supposed to be. But that's the only reason we're doing it - out of good will.' Why is top dentist being 'fined' £150,000 for keeping his patients' teeth too healthy? Rob Mew owns a rare example of a thriving NHS dental practice in the middle of a dental desert. Fairfield House Dental Surgery employs ten dentists and does free outreach work in the local community to improve oral health. However when we visited the surgery was in the process of returning £150,000 to the NHS because it had not carried out enough Units of Dental Activity (UDA). It was having to pay £50,000 a month over three months. UDAs are the metric used by the NHS in its dentistry payment contract which has been deemed 'not fit for purpose' by Parliament's Health and Social Care Committee. The contract requires practices to agree to perform a set number of UDAs - and they are penalised if they come in below or above this. A check-up is worth one UDA while giving a patient a filling racks up three UDAs. Rob told the Mirror: 'We are being penalised for preventing patients requiring more UDAs. We have £150,000 'claw back' this year but we have 19,000 NHS patients which is more than the practice has ever had. The clawback is for not doing enough UDAs but when patients are being looked after better they don't have as much need for dental work.' Fairfield surgery gives his patients a check up every 12 months whereas other practices call lower risk patients back for check ups every two years. Rob said: 'We are seeing them yearly and that's one UDA. We are preventing loss of tooth. A GP practice is paid for how many patients they have on their list. That's how they should be funding dentistry.' Rob says between five and ten people call the practice every day desperate to be seen by an NHS dentist. He has taken on as many as he can but has just started a waiting list. He said: 'We have got patients travelling to be seen here from as far away as north Wales, Manchester and Sheffield. "The NHS dental contract in England only funds enough for half the population to be treated so these patients have moved away but can't get a dentist. And the Exmouth population is exploding and we have a load of new housing but no more dentistry money to treat the people in those houses.' A key Mirror campaign demand is reform of the hated NHS payment contract which disincentivises dentists from treating the patients who need it most. Dentists get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving the practice treating NHS patients at a loss. Last week the Government published its Ten Year Health Plan which pledged that "by 2035 the NHS dental system will be transformed" - but the British Dental Association insists contract reform must happen much sooner. Rob said: 'With these most vulnerable patients with high needs it's really tricky for the practice to to make that work [financially]. 'We had a family last Thursday with three kids and they had never been seen by a dentist. There was decay everywhere and they clearly need a lot of work and the parents are saying we haven't been able to be seen anywhere. And they're just tired because they've been calling around practices trying to get in and it kind of gets put on the back burner. 'We had a 14 year old girl come in a couple of weeks ago and she had four crowns put on her back teeth. And you're thinking, if we hadn't handled that soon she would have a couple of back teeth missing and then a lower denture.' Dental practices have high overheads with staff costs and materials. Fairfield House Dental Surgery is currently trying to find the funds for a new dentist chair which will cost £30,000. Rob has worked in the NHS in some form for 28 years, starting at the age of 15 in a hospital kitchen. He added: 'I've got a lot of good will towards the NHS so yeh I try my best to make it work.' But NHS dentistry cannot rely on good will alone. The British Dental Association warned the Public Accounts Committee earlier this year that the Treasury has become reliant on practices delivering care at a loss - fuelling an exodus of NHS dentists into lucrative private work. The professional body estimates a typical practice loses over £40 delivering a set of NHS dentures and £7 for every new patient exam. A Parliamentary report by the Health Select Committee has described the state of NHS dentistry as "unacceptable in the 21st century". The NHS contract effectively sets quotas on the maximum number of NHS patients a dentist can see as it caps the number of procedures they can perform each year. At the same time over a decade of real terms funding cuts under the Tories means the £3 billion NHS dental budget for England is only enough to treat around half of the population. Devon worst 'Dental Desert' Data from 700,000 participants in last year's GP Patient Survey showed it is hardest to get an NHS dentist appointment in South West England. Questions on dentistry focused on respondents who had attempted to get an NHS dental appointment in the last two years suggests Devon may be one of the country's worst dentistry deserts. Survey responses were grouped by regional Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) which include NHS bodies, local councils and voluntary organisations. The One Devon ICB is responsible for the health of the population in the county. Among people who were already in with an NHS dentist, Devon saw just 72% of people successfully get an appointment. In the wider South West region this was 74% while for England as a whole it was 84%. Dentists for All campaign Save NHS Dentistry petition Sign our petition to save NHS dentistry and make it fit for the 21st century Our 3 demands Everyone should have access to an NHS dentist More than 12 million people were unable to access NHS dental care last year – more than 1 in 4 adults in England. At the same time 90% of dental practices are no longer accepting new NHS adult patients. Data from the House of Commons Library showed 40% of children didn't have their recommended annual check-up last year. Restore funding for dental services and recruit more NHS dentists The UK spends the smallest proportion of its heath budget on dental care of any European nation. Government spending on dental services in England was cut by a quarter in real terms between 2010 and 2020. The number of NHS dentists is down by more than 500 to 24,151 since the pandemic. Change the contracts A Parliamentary report by the Health Select Committee has branded the current NHS dentists' contracts as 'not fit for purpose' and described the state of the service as "unacceptable in the 21st century". The system effectively sets quotas on the maximum number of NHS patients a dentist can see as it caps the number of procedures they can perform each year. Dentists also get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving them out of pocket. The system should be changed so it enables dentists to treat on the basis of patient need. Have you had to resort to drastic measures because you couldn't access an NHS dentist? Are you a parent struggling to get an appointment for a child? Email or call 0800 282591 Of those who attempted to get an appointment at a practice they had not been seen at before, only 14% were successful in Devon. This compared to 19% in the South West region and 33% as the average for England. The big caveat is that many will not have tried to get an appointment if they thought they had no chance. The data shows only a minority of dentists are taking on new adult patients, and in Devon and the South West, hardly any are. British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch said: 'This shows why the government is right to commit to major surgery for NHS dentistry, rather than mere sticking plasters. But we need pace. This service is on the critical list, and demoralised dentists are walking away every day this contract remains in force. If we don't make a break in this Parliament there may not be a service left to save.' A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: 'This government inherited a broken NHS dental system but we are getting on with fixing it through our 10 Year Health Plan. 'We have already begun the rollout of 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments, a 'golden hello' scheme is underway to recruit dentists to areas with the most need and we are reforming the NHS dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists - including introducing tie-ins for those trained in the NHS."
