Free dental care was introduced with the establishment of the National Health
Service (NHS) in 1948. Prior to this, costs had been a deterrent to less
well-off patients needing treatment and this was reflected in the nation's poor
oral health. Severe tooth decay and resultant tooth loss was widespread and it
was not uncommon for people to be edentate (without teeth).
The popularity of the NHS far surpassed government expectations and not
surprisingly the provision of free dental treatment generated huge demand. Very
soon the allocated resources for the delivery of the NHS proved inadequate and
in 1951, as a means of raising extra revenue, charges for dental treatment and
for prescriptions for medicine were introduced. This was regarded by many as a
U-turn on the NHS's founding principle, that is, to offer healthcare to all free
at the point of delivery. Henceforth, dental practices operated on a
fee-per-item basis whereby a dentist was paid a fee by the government for each
aspect of NHS care provided for a patient.
In this 1964 report, This Week (ITV, 1956-92) takes us behind the scenes of two unnamed
central London dental practices to assess the current state of British
dentistry. What it finds is overworked and de-motivated professionals bemoaning
the pressure inflicted on them by lack of government investment in NHS
dentistry. A montage of patient queues and busy treatment rooms visually
substantiates their claims and conveys the programme's conclusions - that dental
care in Britain needs a serious overhaul.
The programme was made in the pre-fluoride 'drill and fill' era of British
dentistry. 'Two out of three children suffer from tooth decay and seven and a
half million fillings are done every year', the commentary tells us. Fluoride,
the wonder weapon for tooth decay, had recently been discovered and the latter
part of the programme investigates the controversial plans for mass fluoridation
of water supplies. Although routinely practiced by water providers since the
1960s, the practice only became mandatory under the Water Act 2003. Despite
being considered a breakthrough in dentistry, fluoride had has always had its
opponents - none more vehement than Ronald Goosetree, a washing machine salesman
from Birmingham, who objects to what he regards as poisoning on a national
scale.
Katy McGahan
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