"Emergency Dentist Appointment"

I had a wobbly tooth after being bashed in the face by a bouncy dog and it led to a bad infection which required immediate attention. My dentist does not do emergency appointments so I phoned the Siskin Centre in Norwich on Wed, who told me that they had 'nothing today or tomorrow but if I phoned tomorrow I might get an appointment Friday'.

Unwilling to wait until Friday with acute pain and pus starting to break through my gums I asked for advise, and they told me to phone 111 which I did. The man I spoke to advised that I needed an emergency appointment and told me that the only emergency dentists available in Norfolk were in Siskin Centre and Kings Lynn and that there would be no point going to a GP as they would be unable to prescribe antibiotics for a tooth infection it had to be a dentist. He gave me the phone number for Kings Lynn. I phoned the Siskin Centre and Kings Lynn again and they were very apologetic but definitely couldn't help me. They confirmed that I needed a dentist rather than a GP and recommended I go to A+E if it was severe.

I ended up having to go to A+E just to get antibiotics, which made me feel really bad as I am sure they have better things to do! ! However they were lovely and didn't make me feel as though I had wasted their time at all.

I was given broad spectrum antibiotics, which didn't work so a few days later I had to go back to Siskin anyway. All staff were lovely and they gave me more appropriate antibiotics whilst I searched for a new dentist who would do urgent work.

When I eventually found a dentist who could take me on they told me that they had emergency appointments every day, which I could have used last week when I so desperately needed them as they had an NHS contract for emergencies which was completely separate from their regular clients and can be used by anyone whether registered at the Surgery or not. They confirmed that they had practices in Norwich and Great Yarmouth that all had emergency appointments and they were a little surprised that the 111 service had not been aware of them.

To summarize, my experience would have been very different if I had been told by 111 about the NHS emergency dentists across Norfolk, and I can't help but wonder if they might even have been able to save the 4 front teeth that I have been told will need extracting once the infection has cleared up if I had received the appropriate antibiotics in the first place?

I tried to give feedback by Friends and Family questionnaire, but couldn't find an option for 111 service.