News
The Future of NHS Care at Carriage Works Dental
Over the last couple of months we have unfortunately seen another increase of missed NHS appointments at the practice.
From 1st June – 1st August 87 NHS appointments (23 hours of clinical time) were missed with dentists Nicola, Danielle and Jack.
If you have an appointment you cannot attend please let us know via phone call, email, text or Facebook message and we can then offer this appointment to someone else that needs an appointment.
As a practice we are trying to offer as much NHS care to our patients as possible so seeing the number of missed appointments increase is a real struggle especially as the NHS diaries are booking so far ahead for treatment and check ups.
There have been multiple news reports recently about the difficulties in patients accessing dental care all over the UK and the problems facing practices trying to recruiting NHS dentists.
There is an increased demand for NHS dental care in the UK and there is also deteriorating dental health due to the lack of access during the pandemic.
As a practice we have always been committed to providing NHS care to our patients with as much flexibility as we can.
Unfortunately the time has come that we have had to become more strict on whether we are able to rebook patients that miss NHS appointments.
If you miss an appointment without reasonable explanation or giving reasonable notice your place at the practice may be at risk.
There are hundreds of patients on the waiting list for NHS care in Cornwall. We currently have 6537 NHS patients at the practice and are at maximum capacity.
In the last year over 2000 dentists have left the NHS and The BDA (British Dental Association) reports that 65% of practices have unfilled vacancies for dentists.
We are extremely grateful and proud that Nicola, Danielle and Jack continue to provide care under the NHS at Carriage Works Dental.
We are still committed to providing NHS dentistry and we are implementing these changes to help us do so.
Carriage Works Dental Appointment Policy Update August 2022
Zero tolerance policy for verbal and physical abuse towards our staff