Crawley Man Awarded £17.5k After Poor Dental Treatment
A Sussex man has been awarded £17,500 in an out of court settlement after receiving poor dental treatment.
Mike Watts, 38, from Maidenbower, sued Dr William Clinton after he provided sub-standard treatment and failed to spot tooth decay while practising at a dental surgery on Gossops Drive.
Mike didn’t realise there was a problem until he changed dentist. “I had visited Dr Clinton regularly and so was just going to my new dentist for a routine check up”, he said.
“I was shocked when I was told that I needed extensive treatment due to mistakes that Dr Clinton had made”, Mike continued. “In total there were six teeth that had been affected.”
Evidence provided for Mike’s lawyer, Heather Williams, from the UK’s leading specialist dental negligence law firm, the Dental Law Partnership, showed that Dr Clinton had not only failed to diagnose and treat infection and decay but had also provided sub-standard fillings and root canal treatment.
Williams said: “That so many teeth were affected shows that this was not a one-off mistake but rather a case of continued failures. Spotting and treating tooth decay is the very core of being a dentist, yet Dr Clinton failed to do this.
“His carelessness has caused my client a lot of distress as well as serious and permanent damage which will be costly to fix.”
Mr Watts now requires root canal treatment at three teeth and a further three teeth extracting and replacing with implants, which cost about £2,500 each.
Mike concluded: “It is upsetting to know that this could have been avoided however I’m glad that this has been settled and that I can now begin to move on. The money is going towards repairing the damage that has been done.”
Dr Clinton has not admitted any liability.