NHS and private treatment combined?

[TalkGirl]

More of a practical question. I am an NHS patient and have two options for my tooth - root canal or extraction. Cutting a long story short, I usually get my work done under sedation at Guys Hospital. They will not root canal my tooth under sedation and my NHS dentist won’t do it, instead wanting to refer me to a private specialist within the clinic. This puts me at a bit of frustrating crossroads as I would prefer to have the root canal but the expense and lack of sedation is pushing me towards extracting it. The lack of support I have got from my dentist has also really troubled me, it felt like he was passing the buck. So I am currently weighing up my options on how to move forward and was hoping someone might be able to shed light on a few questions.
1) is it possible to find an endodontist on the NHS or is that considered more of a private specialty?
2) if I was lucky enough to find an NHS dentist who would do the treatment and offers sedation as a private service, is it possible to still have treatment on the NHS but pay for the sedation option? Effectively combining private/public care?

 

[Gordon]

1) In theory yes. Unfortunately the NHS fees for endodontics are so poor that virtually nobody will do specialist endo under those circumstances. Especially with the costs in London added in.

2) Yes possibly, but see above, it would be a very charitable dentist who wanted to do this for you It used to be an absolute no-no to mix NHS and Private at the same time, but I think it's more permitted now.