09 June 2006
British citizens frustrated by the lack of dentist provision might soon be able to receive treatments and check-ups throughout the European Union and charge the cost back to the NHS, Public Finance has learnt.
Last month, in the case of arthritis patient Yvonne Watts, the European Court of Justice ruled that the NHS was liable to refund the costs of private medical treatment in the EU for UK citizens if their NHS treatment at home was subject to 'undue delay'.
The judgment applies in the first instance to hospital treatment, but legal and dental sources have told PF that it opens the way for people unable to register with a health service dentist to seek NHS-paid for treatment in nearby EU countries.
The legal development follows growing concern about the lack of NHS dentistry provision. Currently, less than half the population of England are registered with an NHS dentist. Meanwhile, French dentists are offering 'tooth ferries' from the east coast to take advantage of cheap and readily available dental services across the channel.
In order to inoculate dentistry against the legal precedent set by the Watts case, the government would be forced to argue that UK citizens have no right to free or subsidised dental check-ups and treatment.
This would be difficult, Jonathan Montgomery, professor of health care law at the University of Southampton, told PF, as the NHS, in principle, says patients do have this right.
'The government would be quite embarrassed to argue that there is no entitlement at all to dental services, because they clearly wouldn't want to admit to that,' he said.
Under the EU internal market, private providers have the right to sell their services anywhere in the EU. Until the Watts case, it was not clear whether that right extended to selling services to NHS-funded patients. The government had claimed that state-funded systems of health care such as the NHS were different from the insurance models predominant in the EU.
'The Watts case essentially denies there's a conflict between those two approaches,' said Montgomery. 'It would solve the government's problem in one sense, although it would mean it would have to spend the money that it planned to commit [to dentistry] rather than saving it.'
It might take a further test case to extend the Watts judgment to dental treatment. But Linda Wallis, director of professional services at the British Dental Association, agreed with Montgomery that: 'There is nothing to suggest it could not be translated.'
PFjun2006
