Dental Tourism Surge By Patients In Birmingham

Mon, 07 Apr 2008

Birmingham’s dental patients are flying abroad for dental treatment at an alarmingly increasing rate, new figures have revealed.

Research by medical tourism search engine RevaHealth.com has found that Birmingham has one of the highest numbers of dental tourists in the country with an average of 140 people a month jetting overseas to get their teeth treated.

Destinations such as Hungary are now widely seen as places to receive cheaper dental treatment .

The shock findings showed that the West Midlands city was one of the top six places in the UK where locals actively enquired about foreign dental treatment.

Almost 50 per cent of Birmingham’s residents said they wanted to go abroad for dental implants and cited "low costs" as one of the main reasons for going the distance.

Thomas Antalffy, managing partner at Budapest-based dental clinic VitalEurope, said: "Over the past year or two, the dental tourism market in the UK has simply exploded. Around 95 per cent of our patients are British and we are currently treating 200 of them a month.

"They're choosing to travel to countries such as Hungary primarily for the cost savings, which can be considerable."

"There is also a huge demand for cosmetic treatment, which isn't available through the NHS and can be extremely expensive if done privately in the UK," he added.

Mr Antalffy claimed that dental costs in Hungary were on average half the cost of treatment in Birmingham clinics and that patients’ were opting for dental tourism in order to avoid long waiting lists for NHS treatment in the UK.

In 2007, a total of 45,000 Brits travelled overseas for dental treatment, compared to 30,000 in 2006.
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