NHS worker awarded over £16k by Wigan dental practice following decade of malpractice

Dene Hemsworth, has been awarded £16,750 from his former dental practice in an out of court settlement with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors the Dental Law Partnership after undiagnosed problems led to numerous avoidable issues - including tooth loss.

The 47-year-old tech specialist for the North West Ambulance Service, was a regular patient at Standish Dental Practice, owned by GKA (1996) Ltd in Standish between 2010 and 2019 and visited the practice when he started having issues.

Mr Hemsworth said: “I made sure never to miss appointments and was seen by a dentist at least every six months almost without fail.

“At one point, the pain was so severe that it was keeping me up at night.

“The pain persisted for a year and a half or more, during which time I visited the dentist on multiple occasions without receiving a diagnosis or solution.

"At one point, the dentist rang me and blamed me for misremembering the events of an appointment and dismissed my concerns about the ongoing pain.”

Mr Hemsworth continued to visit the practice, hoping to find relief for the pain and sensitivity in his teeth.

He was provided with fillings at multiple teeth, scale and polishes and provided with antibiotics.

In 2019, Mr Hemsworth visited a new dental practice due to moving to a different town.

He said: “I was still experiencing a lot of pain so I visited a new dentist.

"I was diagnosed with severe tooth decay, a retained tooth root and periodontal disease.

This explained why I had been in pain for so long.

“The decay was so severe, the only way to treat it was to have teeth extracted, and the periodontal disease was also extremely advanced which has caused significant gum and bone loss that has, over time, drastically affected my ability to eat.

"I was shocked that this had not been treated, or even mentioned, by my previous practice.”

Immensely frustrated that the revelations by the new dentist, Mr Hemsworth contacted the Dental Law Partnership.

Further analysis of his records revealed the extent of the poor care Mr Hemsworth had received over the years he was a patient, and the irreparable and future damage that has been caused by the lack of timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

Mr Hemsworth was provided with poor restorative management and had to have a number of teeth extracted by his new dentist.

He said: “Although a number of previous issues have now been corrected, I have continued to experience pain and sensitivity in my mouth and will have to undergo a series of future treatments in years to come that could have been avoided.

“The whole experience has made me furious. I work for the NHS and these dentists did not act like NHS people at all.

"You trust your dentist to do the right thing and I felt like I had been strung along.

"I was astounded that I had been blamed for the issues I was experiencing to then find out the extent of how poor the dental care I had received was.”

Kyle Padley of the Dental Law Partnership said: “The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary.

"If the dentists involved had undertaken more sufficient examinations at the outset and provided more appropriate treatment, his problems could have been avoided.”

The dental practice owner G K A (1996) Ltd did not admit liability.