NHS / Private Orthodontists (long sorry)

[Guest Gertie100]

My neice went to see her NHS orthodontist who gave her braces - not the normal fixed brace, think it was called a block one(?)

This brace made my neice's bottom jaw stick out because they claimed that the problem was with her jaw, not her teeth.

She wore it for about 2 weeks and during this time suffered quite badly as she couldn't talk or eat properly.

In the end with the agreement of her parents she stopped wearing it.

 

My sister then decided to see another orthodontist as she was not happy with the treatment given with the NHS.

She paid £95 and yesterday saw a different one privately. He told her that the original brace made her look gormless, and that they could do 95% of the correction work using a normal fixed brace.

Marvellous thought my sister who had always believed that the first one went slightly over the top...

The private orthodontist then told her that it would be approx £3k.

After my sister had picked herself up off the floor she asked why she would be paying, was it cosmetic?

No, she did need the brace, but in order to get it on the NHS she has to go to the back of the queue again to wait for the new brace? Even though she waited 2 years to see the original orthodontist?

 

Also she was then told that once she had started the "private" route of treatment she couldn't go back to the NHS? Is this true? Cos that's not how doctors work is it? You can pay to see the consultant and then have the work done on the NHS (obviously by joining the queue!!)

 

ANyway (apologies for being long) - does anyone think she has cause for complaint - bearing in mind that her daughter is 15 this year, so waiting another 2 years for treatment will make her ineligable for NHS treatment anyway!

If she does have cause for complaint who should we approach?

 

Many Thanks!

[The Phantom]

I don't want to be Jonny Raincloud, but I think you could go through the usual NHS complaints procedure (local NHS, Healthcare Commission and then Ombudsman) and still get nowhere.

Our son was born with plagiocephaly (a deformation of the scull) which was obvious from birth but didn't get picked up until we mentioned it to our GP when he was four months old. We were referred to a paediatrician in our local hospital who we could see after six weeks waiting time. He agreed it was plagio but said it would probably self correct as he grew older and there was no treatment on the NHS anyway and discharged us back to our GP. We saw a private consultant who fitted our son with an orthosis (a helmet like device) that is worn daily to correct the shape of the scull as the baby grows.

The treatment worked perfectly, we paid over £1200.- and almost forgot about it when we noticed a newspaper article. It was reported that this helmet therapy was conducted by the Bristol Frenchay Childrens Hospital very successfully on the NHS and it was telling about how many referrals they are getting from all over the country etc etc

Bottom line was, the treatment was availbale on the NHS , only a few miles up the road in Bristol but we were told it wa snot available and fobbed off. We went through the entire complaints procedure of the NHS which took almost two years to fight for retrospective funding of our son's treatment, but did we get anywhere ? No, of course not. They all stick together and if any of the bodies involved claims they are "independent" and conduct "independent reviews" of cases...well believe me they are not and they do not.