Dentist warning: THIS area of the UK is WORST for getting dental treatment
DENTISTS have paid out more than £28million over the past five years in compensation, according to dental negligence solicitor, the Dental Law Partnership. The worst areas for poor dental work in England and Wales has been revealed.
The North West of England is the worst place for dental work, according to the solicitor.
Between 2013 and 2017, about £7m was paid out in claims following poor dental work, the law firm claimed.
The South East was the second worst region for dental work, while Yorkshire & Humberside came third on the unwanted list.
Patients in Wales and East Anglia were least likely to make dental compensation claims, the Dental Law Partnership said.
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Dental malpractice, or dental negligence, can be defined as an avoidable injury caused by a dentist who doesn’t take proper care, the firm said.
The solicitor’s David Corless-Smith said: “It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why patients are more likely to make a claim against their dentist in certain regions.
“One reason could be that there are more individual dentists consistently providing poor treatment in these areas.
“We handle a significant number of claims in every region and would urge anybody who thinks they may have been a victim of substandard dental work to look into it further.
The best and worst regions for dental treatment was calculated by analysing the number of successful legal complaints against dentists.
The number of claims in each region was divided by its population, to find the number of successful claims per 100,000 people.
The average settlement was worth £14,800, and the average age of claimant was 45 years old.
Typical claims included “botched” root canal treatment, failing to spot and treat decay, and fitting poor fillings or crowns, said the law firm.
Meanwhile, last week it was revealed that dentists in the US could be helping to spread an antibiotic-resistant superbug infection.
Researchers claimed Clostridium difficile was being spread in the US when dentists prescribed unnecessary antibiotics which means the bug wis becoming resistant to antibiotics. The dentists were giving patients with heart conditions the antibiotics as a preventative against heart infections, it was claimed.
The superbug causes life-threatening diarrhoea, and costs the US $1billion in medical costs a year.
Clarification
In an earlier version of this article we had said that dentists could be helping to spread the antibiotic-resistant superbug infection Clostridium difficile due to over prescribing antibiotics. In fact this development relates to the actions of dentists in the US rather than the UK. In the UK only 15% of antibiotics are prescribed by dentists.
