Dentists 'refusing to fix their mistakes'

Dentists are damaging patients' teeth and then forcing them to pay to fix the damage, Citizens Advice has warned.

It says it helped people in England and Wales with 4,000 dental care problems last year, up by 9% from the year before.

And when it looked into the details, it found that around three-quarters of these problems related to treatment that had gone wrong.

People reported dentists cracking healthy teeth during a treatment, fillings that came out and dentures that didn't fit. In one case, a patient paid thousands of pounds for a crown that didn't fit and couldn't be removed - and the patient's face was bruised in the process.

Even worse, in around a quarter of these cases, patients said the dentist refused to offer a refund or a free-of-charge repair.

In one case, a woman in her 70s paid £500 to have her teeth capped but the dentist chipped her two front teeth during the treatment.

When the dentist didn't offer a repair for the chipped teeth or any compensation, she moved to a different dentist and had to pay a further £700 to get the damage fixed.

Citizens Advice is calling on dentists to follow the rules by correcting their mistakes free of charge instead of passing costs onto patients.

"While many people get a good service from their dentist, some patients are having treatments that leave them with a new problem like a loose or painful filling or healthy teeth that have been cracked," says Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.

"Not only do they have to undergo further treatment to fix the problem - in some cases dentists are breaking the rules by wrongly asking patients to pay the extra costs."

In law, if a dental treatment causes more problems for the patient, the dentist is usually required to offer to repair the damage at no extra charge.

Under the Consumer Rights Act, private dental patients whose treatment hasn't been carried out with reasonable care are entitled to have any problems fixed by their dentist. If a problem can't be fixed, they have a right to get at least a partial refund.

Meanwhile, NHS patients who get treatments such as fillings, inlays or crowns are also entitled to have this repaired or replaced within 12 months at no extra charge.

"Dentists need to make sure that they aren't charging patients for their mistakes and that they provide patients with clear information about how they can claim compensation if something goes wrong," says Guy.

For complaints about NHS dental work in England, you should first approach the dental practice or make a complaint to NHS England on 0300 3112233. In Wales, the number's 0300 1231299.

If you're not satisfied, you can contact an ombudsman on 0345 0154033 in England, 0300 7900203 in Wales.

And if you have a complaint about private dental treatment which you can't sort out with the practitioner concerned, you can report this to the Dental Complaints Service on 020 8253 0800.