Great Labour election promises: they’ll scrap fees for dental check-ups
This is great news, for all the reasons below.
Now, if Labour could make it possible for everybody to have access to a National Health Service dentist, that would be great.
I haven’t been able to see one since June 2018. Fortunately I have good dental hygiene, but I’d still like access to an expert.
Oh, and you know the reason I don’t have an NHS dentist any more? The company providing the service here in Mid Wales is privately-run.
Health service privatisation – it will always leave us short-changed.
Labour will bring back free dental check-ups if they win the election.
The £22.70 fee to see an NHS dentist will be axed and leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday said the ultimate ambition is to scrap ALL dental fees.
The £450 million-a-year plan will free up resources long-term by focusing on prevention. Fees were introduced in 1951 to pay for UK involvement in the Korean War.
But one in five adults puts off seeing a dentist because of the £22.70 charge for a basic visit. Under the first stage of Labour ’s plans, check-ups, oral cancer examinations, X-rays, clinical scaling and polishing and emergency treatment won’t cost a penny.
Worrying numbers [have] turned to internet kits for scaling and makeshift fillings which can cause major problems.
And 515,000 patients a year with toothache go to GPs or A&E – costing the NHS more than £38 million.
More than 100 children a day have rotting teeth removed in hospital and 90 per cent of cases could have been prevented by early treatment. And decay is the leading cause of admissions among kids aged five to nine.
Source: Labour to scrap dental check-ups costs in election policy with some real bite – Mirror Online
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Another great Policy, one that is of personal interest to myself. As a JSA recipient I currently get free dental treatment but if I were to get a job then I’d have it to pay for and the Dentist sends for me every 3 months due to ongoing problems. That would be quite an expense out of a Minimum Wage, and on top of other expenses such as Prescription charges (for meds. from the GP for other conditions), and of course rent, full Council Tax, and travel costs to/from work, might mean that I would be even financially worse off than on Benefits, certainly no better off.
“Fees were introduced in 1951 to pay for UK involvement in the Korean War.”
Getting Britain militarily involved in the Korean War was a disastrous mistake. It should have tried to broker a peace deal instead.
It came about as a result of a disastrous diplomatic blunder by US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He failed to include South Korea in a list of U S defence interests in his speech at the National Press Club on 12 January 1950.