A dentist has been ordered to pay £3,020 in compensation to a patient who needed a tooth removing after a botched operation.
The dentist, who works for NHS Forth Valley, has also been ordered to undergo further training.
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Professor Alice Brown detailed how the unnamed patient continued to experience pain after having a filling in December 2004.
She was still in pain after further root canal treatment and although prescribed antibiotics by the dentist, who is also not named in the report, problems continued.
As the pain increased she visited a different dentist who told her the tooth had to be removed as, was later discovered, the root canal had been perforated.
At the time, in January 2005, the dentist apologised and refunded the patient the £93.56 she had spent. But she had to spend a further £219 on removal and other treatment before visiting a private dentist for a tooth implant at an estimated cost of £2,500.
The ombudsman was told by an expert advisor that the standard of treatment was ‘clinically unacceptable’ and upheld the complaint.
