I WAS eating tea on a Saturday when an old filling came out in my food.

It was very painful but because it was so late in the night, I had to wait until 9am on Sunday to contact the emergency dentist.

When I finally got through to them I was asked to confirm my name, address and date of birth. Finally I was asked for the reason I was calling.

I informed the young chap that I’d eaten the night before and that I knew it was a filling that had fallen out in my food.

He asked very rightly if there were any swelling, bruising or even an abscess.

I replied not that I’m aware of but I have really bad toothache so I need to be seen.

To my amazement I was told by the young chap on the phone that because of my symptoms that I would have to purchase some very strong pain killers and call back in 48 hours’ time.

I’m sorry but am I missing something here?

It’s called an emergency dentist for a reason, and if it hadn’t been a weekend then I would have called my dentist direct, instead of waiting up all night to make sure I wasn’t going to miss the 9am phone call.

What they are saying is that I have to wait until Monday and they will arrange for me an appointment to see a dentist.

I’m sorry but I find this unacceptable.

Firstly to be told that I have to wait 48 hours for a medical emergency and also that they are encouraging me to take pain killers.

Surely this breaks NHS rules?

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