Experts have revealed the hidden dangers posed by Britons who travel abroad for cheap dental treatments and how it can make it almost impossible to find help at home if something goes wrong. Tens of thousands of UK residents flock to hotspots such as Turkey, Hungary, Poland and Spain to get dental procedures at a fraction of the price it costs at home.
But if the worst happens and the treatment doesn’t work as hoped, patients face being snubbed by dentists at home because of the complexities of the domestic dental system. NHS dentists are not paid to do advanced dental work such as rescuing a botched cosmetic treatment, meaning they will often refer the patient to a dental hospital.
However, hospitals will usually bounce the patient back to the referring dentist due to a lack of capacity and lack of funding, and the practitioner can simply refuse to provide treatment if they feel the case is too difficult or risky. This can result in a patient being left to live with the results of a disastrous treatment if they cannot afford to have it remedied privately. Remedial private dental care is often carried out by selective specialist clinics and the cost can be more than double of the original treatment cost in the UK
