NHS Dental Care At S3 Dental Haywards Heath

Whilst historically, S3 Dental has been able to provide a full range of NHS dental services, the fallout from the pandemic has led to a national crisis for NHS dentistry.

The poorly designed NHS dental contract, little reform from the previous government and a severe lack of funding has essentially collapsed the service and the NHS workforce diminished considerably.

All services regarded as primary care dentistry are privately operated businesses that receive renumeration from the NHS for the work carried out. This means that dental practices, whilst providing dentistry under the NHS dental contract, still need to engage dentists, nurses, receptionist on a private term of employment, and also find other dental team members such as dental labs to provide “NHS Appliances” such as crowns and dentures.

With the collapse of the NHS system, there are unfortunately very few dental labs available to offer the range of NHS treatments, and as such our provision of the NHS service at this stage will be limited by the availability of such professionals and the time frame for which the work can be provided.

We currently only have one clinician providing NHS care, and we expect the NHS service to be inundated with demand.

We have at this stage chosen to limit the NHS dental service we can provide to patients already registered with the practice.

We look forward to rebuilding the service and hope to reengage with our communicate with this service.

We wish to manage patient expectations about the service and patients attempting to access the service can expect the following things.

  • Online Booking For Appointments Only

  • NHS Appointments with 1 Clinician Only - Dr Parita Patel

  • Booking will be limited to the days and hours Dr Parita Patel works at S3 Dental

  • NO NHS EMERGENCY Appointments currently

  • Limited Provision of Dental Treatments until we can secure dental accessory services such as dental labs to provide NHS certified dental appliances.

  • Strict Attendance rules - patients who short notice cancel appointments without 48 hours business day notice, arrive too late or miss appointments will not be offered further appointments on the NHS at this stage.

  • Prompt payment for NHS Services when requested under the terms of the NHS Dental Service.

  • Required to attend for courses of treatment in a timely manner to ensure we can complete any potential dental treatment.