Dental health and time off work

Before the days of the ATM, people had to queue up at the bank to get money. It might not seem like much, but think about the logistics involved if you needed a tenner. You had to find a branch of your banking provider, then go into the building and wait until there was a bank teller free to deal with your request. 

And given that the banks were only open during business hours, ie the hours of the day most people were at work, it was even more of a challenge. The only thing that saved many people from mega-frustration would have been shops that accepted cheques.

A similar situation happens when we need to see the dentist. It means straying away from the office - sometimes quite far, as well - in order to get that filling done and get your mouth back to full dental health status. Of course, there are dental practices that open late one night a week or maybe more. But in the main, our dental appointments are generally booked in for some point during the working day.

So it's all the more surprising to read this week that fewer than half of UK workers get paid time off to see their dental health practitioner. Quoted in a report on the dentistry.co.uk site,  the Chief Exec of the British dental health Foundation said that the findings highlight a general "low level of importance" of maintaining "good oral health".

As anyone knows, toothache is no fun. And as the article points out, poor dental health can lead to a host of other ailments, some serious. So don't put off that dental treatment.