Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "‘Absolutely excruciating’ - does Britain's dental industry need a complete overhaul?" video.

What no one seems to want to talk abou is costs. It's just private practice or NHS and no discussion on competitive and coercive levers to drive down costs so private dentistry isn't so expensive in the first place. There is no shortage of dentists to meet demand. There is a shortage of dentists to create sufficient competition to push down prices. There is a shortage of vendors providing materials and equipment to dentistry such that it doesn't provide sufficient competition to drive down their prices which a dentist must recover. The answer to problems the government face can not always just be "throw more money at it". Particularly when the UK is already insolvent (bankrupt) as it is. That isn't good governance. Instead of just throwing money at problems the government need to be seeking to deeply understand the sector. Where they can make short term investment to increase productivity and competition of upstream suppliers to reduce their costs so dentists can do the same. Train many more dentists (without sacrificing quality) to encourage dentists to pass along those savings. Private practice GPs, specialists and allied health should have similar enquiries. It's only after these fundamental changes to the private health sector are made that the NHS should go to the bargaining table.
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@Ras6200 That's the point. Pulling the leavers from the OP means in terms of end users those costs come down, for both private and NHS users. It means actually the current system could fund NHS dentistry if the costs for dentists were reduced too by pulling those leavers. It's taking the money you would otherwise try to throw at a ballooning problem which will only get worse, and instead investing it in measures that increase competition, productivity, innovation and reduce costs. That way you actually tackle the problem for the long term and it doesn't keep ballooning out of control.
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