Bournemouth is the priciest town in the UK for private dental care, according to data recently released by private healthcare search engine WhatClinic.com.
The cost of a private check-up is £47 on average, £11 more than the average cost in the UK and a full £24 more than in Birmingham, the cheapest area.
However, a spokesman from the British Dental Heath Foundation (BDHF) questioned its accuracy: “I don’t know where they get these figures from. NHS care is fixed, the price won’t vary from place to place. Privately, they set their own system of fees, and I don’t believe we could get a private check at £25 everywhere.”
The spokesman said all the dentists in the area are familiar with each other and charge almost the same price as each other. Like other professional services, the BDHF explained, prices are based on the time it takes to do the treatment, the cost of the material involved and the expertise of the person doing it.
The data, from WhatClinic.com is based on fees charged by more than 12,000 private dentists across the UK for some of the most common treatments.
BDHF’s spokesman suggests one option to get the best out of dental treatment is to take advantage of the so-called “two-tier system” where patients get a combination of “basics from an NHS check”, but for more advanced treatment “such as a white filling instead of a silver one.”
