Sul Malik, a 22-year-old dental student at Newcastle, has created a website called DentalCompare to help people compare prices for NHS and private dental care. The site aims to function as a dentistry equivalent of comparison services like Go Compare or MoneySupermarket.
Motivated by patient struggles
Malik, who is about to begin the fourth year of his degree, has heard from dentists and patients about the difficulties people face in accessing oral healthcare. He used his IT skills to build the website to reduce stress for those unsure where to seek treatment.
He told ChronicleLive: "Essentially, I've built the website and am now in contact with more clinics further afield and we are looking to add more areas. What we want now is for people to know about the site!"
Common issues heard from patients
Malik explained that in his clinical placements, patients often share their struggles. "From day-to-day meetings with patients I hear so many common issues - of patients who have not found it easy to find an NHS practise, having found private practises way to expensive and so on.."
He noted that some patients have waited years to get care, saying: "With my degree at Newcastle, the first two years had been very academic focused, but you see patients on placement the second you begin third year. With every single patient you see, you ask them about their journey to that point. And for many it has been years - 10 years even - to get to the point where they are going to the dental hospital."
Building an easier option
Malik built the tool because formal sources like the NHS website can be out of date. He added: "A lot of patients would tell me how difficult they were finding it to get an NHS dentist accepting new patients. When they considered going private instead, another problem was trying to work out what different practices charged without having to search through lots of individual websites or contact practices one by one."
He said: "I decided to try and build something that could make that process easier. I'd like DentalCompare to become somewhere people know they can turn when they need dental treatment and want an easier way to understand and compare their options."
DentalCompare allows users to compare prices for various treatments at clinics offering private care and those offering NHS care.
