Sir,
I am writing to express my concern about the possible loss of National Health dentist provision for many patients who were formerly on the list of Mr. Blackwell in Tenby.
For patients who were registered with Mr. Blackwell and accepted their placement on Mr. Kernahan's list in Carmarthen, could I urge you to contact that practice and make an appointment for your six-monthly check-up or follow-up treatment, because if like me you have been waiting to be called, you will wait in vain!
Unlike Mr. Blackwell's surgery, this practice does not routinely remind patients that an appointment is due. Furthermore, you may be surprised to know that all notes, X-rays and impressions regarding ongoing treatment remain a dentist's own property and are not as a matter of course sent on to other dentists taking over practices or patient lists - so that anyone who was mid-treatment will find that there will be nothing to indicate prior treatment other than the evidence in their mouths.
If you have not received treatment within the last 15 months you will find that despite receiving a letter from the Health Authority contractor services directorate informing you that you would be placed on Mr. Kernahan's list or possibly by arrangement with one of the other practices on the list (if eligible!) you will almost certainly have now lost the opportunity to be a National Health patient at all.
Those of us who were due treatment or check-ups during the period that Mr. Blackwell convalesced from illness had at least the benefit of realising that there were going to be delays in treatment, and then further delays with subsequent illness. In addition, some patients may then have discovered that steps were being taken to attract another dentist to take over the practice so that although delays had occurred, there was every possibility that the NHS dental care provision would continue from the same location and under the same terms. This waiting has inevitably delayed all due check-ups and treatments to the extent that some people may find that they are dangerously close if not now beyond the 15-month period that entitles them to NHS treatment.
I am unsure whether the 15-month period is inclusive or exclusive of waiting time patients may be forced to accept for an appointment with the dentist.
Likewise, I am interested to know whether in view of the delays experienced at the Tenby Surgery while everyone waited patiently for these things to be resolved, or in utter oblivion of the situation that in fact the 15-month period could be deemed to have commenced from the time of sending the undated letter from Dyfed Powys Health Authority informing us of these permanent changes to our dental health provision. Especially as the letter stated that as from February 2, 2003, arrangements for our dental care had been transferred to Mr. N. Kernahan in Carmarthen, and that 'if we were happy with the proposed arrangements, you need not do anything. You should go to Mr. Kernahan for your next appointment'.
We were told to do nothing - and I am quite sure that most people unless in pain or discomfort will still be waiting for that appointment for a routine check-up.
I do not want to alarm anyone unduly about the situation, but in view of the appalling provision of NHS dentists, it would be advisable to do something.
I am sending a copy of this letter to the Dyfed Powys Health Authority Contractor Services Directorate for clarification, comment and assurances and will be following it up with letters to Nick Ainger, Christine Gwyther and the Welsh Assembly. I want answers.
I want to know how it can be that the Labour Party, for goodness sake, reduced payments to dentists for NHS dental treatment that allegedly forced so many practices to go private. Despite the fact that even here in the west I am yet to see a poor dentist, we do have some of the lowest incomes in the country so that I am at a loss to understand how people can be expected to pay as much as £45 for a check-up.
I am sure a nice new Assembly building will be a great asset, but in a country where human beings are forced to remove their own teeth with a wrench it seems priorities are seriously wrong.
In due course when monies are retrieved from all the farmers who received some of the overpaid £2.5m. compensation for cows lost to TB (as indeed all people overpaid any social benefits from the public purse have to), perhaps we will at least be given our long overdue 10-bed hospital, since this sum will go a long way towards paying for it.
It seems to me that we are very much the poor relative here in West Wales and our NHS dental health services rapidly approaching that of the Third World - as in non-existent.
All students benefiting from training at the excellent dental school in south-east Wales should be forced to repay their student loans by working them off over a minimum three-year period in the NHS system of Wales and especially if students in Wales are to be the beneficiaries of any preferential treatment vis-a-vis student top-up fees.
In the short term, I would like to see existing NHS dentists and private dental practitioners receive cash incentives to stay within or re-enter the NHS market, so that the woefully inadequate service currently provided actually begins to address the need at the earliest possible opportunity.
Marion Davies,
Highlands,
Serpentine Road,
Tenby.