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The National Health Service Dental Reforms Of 2006
The National Health Service (NHS) underwent a reformation of its dental service in an effort to remove the old complicated charging system and replace it with three simple standard price bands. This all took place in April 2006.

Whilst the prices for NHS dental insurance plans can be cheaper than plans sold to cover private dental health care, many patients are finding it increasingly difficult to find a local dental surgery registering NHS patients. As a result, more Brits seem to be purchasing dental cover plans which - like ours - allow for the option to receive either NHS or private dental treatment. The unfortunate fact is that in an emergency should a person registered for NHS treatment manage to schedule an appointment they may still have to wait an unreasonable amount of time before they are seen by the dentist. Many UK dental surgeries have limited time slots set aside for their NHS clients during the week, not good when it’s urgent and you need to be seen as quickly as possible.

Here is a true story, this actually happened to me a few years ago: I had a dental abscess, but had just moved into my area and not yet registered with a dentist. The local dental practice was not accepting new NHS patients and I was in pain. I had to register as a private patient and ended up paying around £400 in dental fees. The worst thing was that it came just three days before our family holiday in Texas and without dental insurance some of our holiday money vanished on dentist fees. Naturally, the family is now insured.

Over the years many more dentists have stopped offering treatment on the NHS in favour of private practice than those deciding to take on new patients. This makes it harder for the average person to find affordable dental treatment in their area without the help of their dental insurance contributing towards increasing private dental treatment costs.

In April 2006, when the government introduced the new NHS Dentistry contract it was to try and stop the flow of dentists away from offering NHS care in favour of private practice. According to a BBC article I read earlier today "NHS dental access 'falls further'" (2008-06-05) with more than 90,000 patients not seeing an NHS dentist in 2008 and as many as 300,000 patients losing their NHS dentist in a single month. That was mid 2008. Today the news is not all bad, according to the NHS provisional dental activity in England under the contractual arrangements which came into effect on 1 April 2006, 28.4 million patients saw an NHS dentist in the 24 month period ending 31 March 2010, a 0.8 per cent increase compared to the 24 month period ending 31 March 2006. So far the report highlights that we have now seen seven consecutive quarters of growth in this measure.

What are your options?
Despite the many dentists no longer opting to take on NHS patients, there are still dentists who have kept their existing patients on their books. Thanks to the hard work performed by the PCTs there are currently surgeries opting to take on new patients under the NHS scheme. If you have an NHS dentist, you will still be safe, for the moment, but as I mentioned above, should you move to a new area, you may not be so lucky. Either way a good inexpensive dental insurance plan may be the answer for you and your family. The policy prices tend not to be that much more than when buying insurance cover for private dental treatments and of course there is the added bonus of you not having to wait long for an appointment.

Check for available dentists in your area and compare dental insurance plans that will work for you.