{"id":386456,"date":"2026-01-02T08:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T08:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386456\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T08:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T08:20:08","slug":"bristol-dentists-gave-patients-ultimatum-before-nhs-sign-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386456\/","title":{"rendered":"Bristol dentists &#8216;gave patients ultimatum&#8217; before NHS sign-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sam Mellor, from Bedminster, said he arrived outside the practice after 07:00 and managed to get to the reception shortly after 11:00. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having spoken to frustrated patients who had just paid the \u00a369 for the hygienist, Mr Mellor said he asked the receptionist if this was in fact the case. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said that she responded by telling him if he wanted to be registered as an NHS patient, he needed to book a hygienist appointment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She advised that he could pay for it at a later date, before the appointment, but that he would have to book it and would not be registered as an NHS patient until he had paid. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Mellor said he paid for the appointment and subsequently complained in an email about the service offered and being forced to sign up to the hygienist. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lodge Causeway Dental Practice replied to Mr Mellor in an email seen by the BBC, claiming that the hygienist&#8217;s appointment was &#8220;just an offer&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Mr Mellor insists this was not the case for him and many others, describing it as an &#8220;ultimatum&#8221;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Mellor, from Bedminster, said he arrived outside the practice after 07:00 and managed to get to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-386456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}