Dental health postcode lottery exposed

Updated
dentist curing a female patient
dentist curing a female patient



We are at the mercy of a postcode lottery when we visit a private dentist, according to a new study. It's easy to assume that once you have made the decision to go private, the costs at one clinic are roughly the same as those at any other, but you'd be wrong. The study found that the price of a simple check up ranges from £15 to £185.

The research, by price comparison service WhatClinic.com, found that London was the home of the priciest private check up in the country - at £185 - compared with one Birmingham surgery offering a checkup for just £15. This is actually cheaper than a standard NHS check-up, which is priced at £18.

On average, the Midlands city emerged as the cheapest place for a private checkup - with an average cost of £31. Meanwhile Milton Keynes was named as the most expensive overall - with an average cost of £62. The average across the whole of the UK was £46.

Shop around

Overall the price of private checkups is increasing - and has risen 28% in the last six months. And while in areas with a plentiful supply of NHS dentists, and manageable waiting lists, the easy answer is to avoid private care and get your teeth looked after by the NHS, in some instances this isn't always possible.

The study showed that for those who go private there's a small fortune to be saved by shopping around.
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If you are willing to travel far and wide for cheaper care, it found that the cheapest city for teeth whitening is Plymouth, while the cheapest root canal surgery is available in Glasgow. Liverpool, meanwhile, offers the best savings on dental implants.

And while on the face of it, commuting for hundreds of miles for dental care seems a bit too much like hard work, the kinds of savings available may make you reconsider. If you live in Cheltenham, for example, on average you'll pay the UK's highest price for veneers (£570). If you travelled to Leicester for them, however, you'd pay £318 for them. Likewise if you need dental implants, you could spend an average of £2,420 for them in London, or travel to Newcastle for them and pay £1,383.

Of course not everyone with howling tooth pain wants to hop on a train for several hours to track down cheaper root canal treatment, but it is worth sparing a few minutes to check for a cheaper deal closer to home. Emily Ross, Director of WhatClinic.com, said: "These figures show the huge amount of savings that can be made by shopping around for dental care, even within the same city."


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