Economics -
National Health Service 2
A
government spending watchdog has launched a
special inquiry into Britain's dentists, prompted
by The Observer's 'Rip-Off Dentists' campaign.
The inquiry, by the Audit Commission, will
investigate whether dentists are boosting their
earnings by doing too many fillings, and examine
how much of their work is simply shoddy. It will
also look at how much fraud dentists are
perpetuating, and whether the government has
fulfilled its pledge that everyone should have
access to an NHS dentist.
The Observer campaign, which ran in spring 2000,
revealed that dentists in Britain do around £200
million of unnecessary work each year to earn
more money. For most patients, there is no need
for a check-up every six months, and many are
given too many fillings. It also revealed that
poor-quality materials and equipment were being
used and delicate work rushed. One dentist was
seeing 110 patients a day, earning him more than
£250,000 a year.
According to one academic study, 90 per cent of
the 1.1m root fillings done in Britain each year
are botched. In about 10,000 cases a year,
dentists left a shard of their drill inside the
tooth. Another study showed that more than
four-fifths of crowns don't fit, increasing the
chance of further rot. The Observer's campaign
forced the British Dentistry Association to
confess: 'It's time the public realised that...
quality in NHS dentistry is going down.' The
association admitted that NHS crowns are made of
cheaper materials than on the Continent, are more
likely to break off and may poison the patient;
root fillings are done with old materials and
equipment; and high dosage X-rays are given,
endangering the patient's health, because NHS
dentists don't have the latest low-dosage digital
equipment.
In its consultation document at the launch of its
inquiry, the Audit Commission says: 'The fee
system may offer perverse incentives to carry out
activity irrespective of what evidence there
might be about effectiveness.'
See also: Tooth Whitening
Treatments
The
Chief Executive of the Institute of Healthcare
Management proposed a “lifestyle
penalty” to be paid by smokers which would
encourage people to be responsible for their
health and fund the NHS. He neglected to mention
that for each £1 spent on smoking-related
diseases, the government rakes in £14 from
tobacco tax!
During
a six month study by the National Patient Safety
Agency carried out in 28 NHS hospitals, 24,500
"adverse incidents" were uncovered. One
estimate suggests that as many as one in ten
people going into hospital could fall victim to
an error made by medical staff or suffer
unexpected reactions to drugs or other treatment.
If the figures are to be believed, this would
equate to over a million incidents every year,
with hundreds causing the death of patients or
severe health problems.
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