A Sutton woman received £14,500 in compensation after she was left with excruciating toothache, infections, and eventually lost her tooth. because her dentist failed to spot and treat decay.

Ely Standard: Ashley Quinlan, of Sutton, received £14,500 in compensation after she was left with excruciating toothache, infections and eventually lost her tooth. because her dentist failed to spot and treat decay. Ashley's tooth is pictured. Picture: ANGUS REYNOLDS.Ashley Quinlan, of Sutton, received £14,500 in compensation after she was left with excruciating toothache, infections and eventually lost her tooth. because her dentist failed to spot and treat decay. Ashley's tooth is pictured. Picture: ANGUS REYNOLDS. (Image: Archant)

Ashley Quinlan required extensive corrective implant treatment after she visited Dr Neil Furse at High Street Dental Practice in Sawston between October 2004 and July 2010 when she was suffering from toothache.

The 27-year-old recruitment administrator said: "I had visited Dr Furse since I was a young teenager.

"He sent me to the orthodontist for my first braces - I totally trusted him. When I began suffering from toothache in early 2009 I thought he'd be able to treat it, so made an appointment with him."

Ely Standard: Ashley Quinlan, of Sutton, received £14,500 in compensation after she was left with excruciating toothache, infections and eventually lost her tooth. because her dentist failed to spot and treat decay. Picture: ANGUS REYNOLDS.Ashley Quinlan, of Sutton, received £14,500 in compensation after she was left with excruciating toothache, infections and eventually lost her tooth. because her dentist failed to spot and treat decay. Picture: ANGUS REYNOLDS. (Image: Archant)

"His solution was to place a filling and my toothache subsided for a while, but returned worse than ever in May 2010.

"The pain was around the filling Dr Furse had fitted the year before. In hindsight I suppose this was strange, but didn't think much of it at the time.

"His solution was to perform root canal treatment, which I thought would be the end of my problems.

"In 2017 I was eating a sweet, and half my tooth fell out," Mrs Quinlan said. "I had to make an emergency dental appointment to see a dentist, and was told my tooth would either need repeat root canal treatment, or to be extracted.

"I couldn't believe it. I'd had all this dental treatment and was suddenly told my tooth might need to be extracted.

"I was also told that Dr Furse hadn't removed decay from my tooth, and had just placed a filling over it instead. So the filling just sat on top of the decay, which eventually spread all the way to my gum. I finally had the tooth extracted in 2017."

Mrs Quinlan contacted dental negligence solicitors the Dental Law Partnership who found that Dr Furse had failed to remove decay that was clearly visible in X-rays before placing the filling.

The infections were really painful," Mrs Quinlan said. "I can't believe that all of this was so easily avoidable. If I had been seeing a different dentist who had spotted decay then maybe I'd still have my tooth."

Jenny Wood, of the Dental Law Partnership, said: "If the dentist had carried out adequate treatment in the first place, all of Mrs Quinlan's future problems could have been avoided. We hope the compensation received goes some way towards paying for her corrective treatment."

The Dental Law Partnership took on Mrs Quinlan's case in 2017. The case was settled in 2019 when the dentist paid £14,500 in an out of court settlement. The dentist did not admit liability.