Flying teeth

Dental tourism looks like it’s here to stay, with more surgeries opening up in the UK and abroad that offer this feature it is now a very real part of the dental market. Patients can chose a range of packages, some of which even include accommodation and local transport. Patients can pick a range of destinations both inside and outside Europe. Dental tourism also happens in the other direction with patients entering the UK to receive dental treatment. There are those people who may have come to the UK as economic migrants, for example people and the families from other member states of the European Union and also those people who are UK nationals but spend large periods of time in other countries, be it within Europe or abroad.

The economic migrants from Europe are a good example of how the UK dental market can be distorted by dental tourism but to a degree which we may not be able to fully appreciate. Our health planning for NHS services tends to be based on the population we know about or what we assume about that population. Health policy makers do not seem to be able to predict who is going to arrive in the UK, where they will come from and what their needs will be. If health planners could carry out this sort of predictive risk modelling then there is a chance that UK health services could be designed to meet the needs of the entire population. What we seem to have at the moment is an oral health service based on existing population profiles.