...sitting comfortably?
Does anyone know the procedure of a visit to the dentist?.. my sisters daughter went and the dental surgery she went too was taking on new clients on the nhs.so you can imagine a long list! her daughter has excellent teeth and atttended every 6 months but because she hadnt attended the dentist that she used to go too and hadnt had an appointment for a year because of work committments and times etc, they kicked her off the books! she had been going there for 20 years. she has since had to attend charles clifford for a wisdom tooth prob and they checked her teeth and theyre excellent and well looked after, they dont need to see her anymore for any teeth probs so as to why the other dentist kicked her off the books is very annoying. its not like shes got dental problems and is scared and kept missing appointments or something is it ?
my sis uses the same dentist and has done so for the last 35 years!!! so the need for the new dentist came about...
she handed her name in, the one receptionist! up stairs and people were sitting down stairs in a reception area expecting to be called and theres no notice telling you to go upstairs. i fail to see how any one who is unable to manage stairs could get up them , cos they wouldnt hear you if you called for assistance. Then theres the one and only dentist..he called her in took her name and set about scaling and polishing.he never asked her anything never even spoke cept to say there may be a little bleeding! there was no nurse present ..which has out-raged me!! no nurse present? i thought this was law???
but no nurse in the new surgery, i thought it was against the law not to have a chaperone these days in gp/hospital and dental surgeries ...?:rant:

I don't think you need a dentist for scale and polishing. I go to an expensive private dentist. Flints on abbey lane, and that treatment is done by a hygenist, who is not a dentist, but a specialist who teaches you about mouth hygene and cleaning. A nurse comes in to assist with the polish and to hold a sucking tube to get rid of saliva, but often the nurse isn't needed for the scraping bit and often goes out of the room for a bit.

When I have had an extraction under intraveinous sedation, there had to be two nurses present.

And when the dentist does things like checkups, fillings etc.. there is always a nurse.

in this day and ages as its put .is it law to have a nurse around?

A few years ago, the 'dental nurse' didn't even have to be trained at all, and could have started that morning after walking in off the street!! Now I think they have to be qualified by law.. I was! I was always in the room.. not only to protect the patient.. but also the dentist!
There is a lot more too it than just holding the aspirator though, I can assure you.. quite a few dental nurses go on to become hygienists.. through further qualification. When i worked at the dental hospital, we left our student alone (in a big room with lots of dental chairs, and other students), the students would stick their hands up if they needed us, otherwise we would just 'patrol' the area.

Flint the younger is a lovely guy, not seen him for years!

nitelife, don't take don't take the striking off the list personally, it's what happens these days. All NHS dentists remove people from their lists who haven't attended for (in my dentists case 15 months). I think that this was probably brought in as a result of there being too few dentists. When a dentists list is full he /she has to turn new patients away, so it seems sensible that anybody who doesn't visit their dentist for a long period of time, should be taken off the list to make room for somebody who does need treatment. After all, non-attending patients could have died or moved away and never attend again but how is the dentist to know that.

It's not such a big ordeal to make sure that you go for just one check-up per year to ensure you keep on the list is it?

As for chaperoning, I would say that anybody sending a young person should make sure that they attend with them, for all sorts of reasons. Failing that you can request that a nurse sits in but as far as I'm aware there is no law saying that there has to be a nurse present just as at the doctors.

Originally posted by leddi
Flint the younger is a lovely guy, not seen him for years!
I agree he is not my regular dentist, but I have had been in his chair a couple of times and he is great. All the people at flints are great, but it is very expensive.