I've specially needed the Special Needs Dental Service this week. I'd been booked in for a big xray on Wednesday in Didcot. Last week my blooming lower right 7 was playing up again, waking me up at night and preventing me from chewing. So Jane rang on Monday morning. The xray machine was out of order (a result of economies, I wonder), but we asked to see a dentist anyhow. Wednesday came. Antibiotics prescribed, and the xray rearranged in East Oxford for today. They'd just fit me in.
This morning we drove in to the incredibly impressive East Oxford Health Centre, past my old stamping ground of Cowley St John, and within 15 minutes I was dealt with - by none other than the head honcho. Nice picture of my rather decadent teeth ready to be emailed to my dentist for an appointment on Tuesday. Here at least the NHS ain't broke, but living up to its name of "service". I really hope that efforts to mend it don't prove counterproductive, as the King's Fund warned this morning. It's certainly not obvious how such a superb service could be improved, or even maintained, by GP commissioning.
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