Dental dispute continues as health board appoints new dentist

NHS SHETLAND has taken on a new dentist which will bring the number of dentists employed by the health board back to 5.4 whole time equivalent (WTE).

This, however, continues to be well below the minimum of 15 dentists required to serve the local population.

The new full-time NHS dentist will start working on 28 April. In January Dr Heather Ballantyne joined the dental team as a senior clinician.

However, since September 2023, one dentist has left the organisation.

In addition, there are understood to be four WTE dentists employed by independent contractors and doing NHS work, such as Lerwick Dental Practice (LDP).

The Market Street practice is currently involved in a very public dispute with the health board about a routine surgery inspection.

Around 2,000 patients have already lost their NHS registration with LDP as a result of NHS Shetland ‘pausing’ the registration process for a new dentist while inspection process is ongoing.

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In a statement issued last night (Wednesday), NHS Shetland was clearer than ever before that in its view the required clinical standards at LDP are not met.

They said they were waiting for the owner of the practice to agree to a private meeting.

“The purpose of the meeting is to work with the practice to ensure it achieves its practice certificate,” NHS Shetland said.

“Our goal is to ensure that all required standards are met, and we are proposing a detailed plan to support the practice to fulfil their responsibilities.

“Once this is completed the board will support the practice to list dentists to provide NHS dentistry if they wish to do so.

“In the meantime, NHS Shetland is monitoring the situation closely and can assure the public that certain thresholds must be met to allow NHS care to continue to be delivered in the longer term.

“Additionally, we are actively working to address the challenges and are meeting with the Scottish Government this week to discuss ways to improve and strengthen dental services in Shetland.”

Lerwick Dental Practice was approached for comment earlier this week but has not responded yet.