Elderly Brits like me have paid our dues – why are we being hung out to dry?

I’m 78 years old this year and my dentist has recently gone private. I can’t get an NHS dentist where I live – two I know of are taking on NHS patients, but only when a vacancy crops up, and they’re miles away. I just have to keep ringing to check if they have an opening. It’s an appalling crisis driven by lack of funding by this Conservative government.

I completed a full working life – paid the required NI contributions and income tax on my earnings, and only claimed sickness benefit twice in that time. Yet I am being penalised. I earned my state pension and I also paid into my company’s pension scheme based on the fact that I would be “comfortable” in my dotage, and able to cover all my utilities and living expenses (now to include rent to a private landlord).

Instead, I’m paying tax on my pensions to enable people on benefits, whom I don’t have a grievance with, to receive free dental care if they are on universal credit, housing benefit, child benefit, pension credit, unemployment benefit – you name the benefit and they can get NHS dental treatment. I’m being penalised by this outrageous situation.