Dental director to depart

NHS Shetland is advertising nationally for a new clinical director of dental services after the resignation of Pippa Arbon after just two years in the post.

The change comes as the local health service still faces challenges in registering dental patients and recruiting dentists prepared to remain in the isles long term.

Arbon was appointed in May 2011 following the departure of Mike Collins at a time when Lerwick’s popular St Olaf surgery run by Alun Owen was closing as the islands’ only independent NHS-registered dental service.

Director of clinical services Simon Bokor Ingram said the size of the waiting list had halved in the past two years since Arbon had been in post, but said they still aimed to be able to offer treatment to all Shetland residents.

“We are still hopeful we can get an independent NHS-committed practice interested in setting up in Shetland,” Bokor Ingram said.

The most immediate challenge, he added, was recruiting permanent dentists.

“I think we have a more stable workforce than we did before, but we still have to use locums to fill gaps when people leave,” he said.

“If you get a gap of just one or two dentists in a small service like this it can be hard to fill.

“Recruitment remains a challenge right across the north of Scotland for health care in general and coming to Shetland is a lifestyle choice as well as choice about the job.”

The challenge of recruiting a new director could be assisted by the latest “happiness index” from the Scottish government’s Office of National Statistics that lists Shetland and the other Scottish islands as having the most content residents in the country.