Health board feels ‘more positive” after dentist appointed to Lerwick Dental Practice
NHS Shetland chief executive Brian Chittick is feeling “more positive” about the health board’s relationship with Lerwick Dental Practice (LDP) after the practice announced the appointment of a new dentist.
Very little information has been released so far other than that a new dentist will be joining the isles’ only high street practice providing NHS dental care.
It comes after around 2,000 NHS patients were deregistered from the Market Street practice in autumn last year as part of a major spat with the local health board.
Chittick, a dentist himself, said the health board had been working hard to engage with LDP over recent months.
“What I can say is [that] we have engaged with the local practice in town, we have engaged with the owners, and we have been working with them to look at what sets the conditions for them to be able to re-register those patients and maybe even take on more NHS care (… ) and those conversations have been really positive,” the health board chief said.
No one at LDP or at the company’s head office in Aberdeen was available on Wednesday to confirm whether those previously deregistered would be the first to be offered new NHS appointments.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Lerwick Dental Practice introduced
as the surgery’s new dentist.
The post said: “I graduated as a dentist in 2021 in Romania and recently became GDC registered here in the UK.
“Moving to Shetland is a big step, and I’m really looking forward to meeting the community and helping patients feel comfortable and confident about their dental care.”
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“It feels the most positive that have been for a long while how we are engaging with the practice and get NHS provision back on the rails because we know that there is an access problem,” Chittick said.
“It’s the health board’s role to help the practice to get to where they need to be (…) bearing in mind that they are the only NHS provider in quite a remote rural area.”
Those who were deregistered in autumn last year could either remain with LDP as private patients or join the growing number of islanders not registered with any dentist.
NHS Shetland committed to provide emergency treatment for those who had been deregistered under what is called ‘safety net provision’.
Back in November, Lerwick Dental Practice stated very publicly that they had issues with the current director of dentistry at NHS Shetland, who, they accused, had made it “extremely difficult” for LDP to accommodate and take on new patients.
At the time the practice gave notice that 2,000 NHS patients were to be deregistered by February 2025 and warned that a further 4,000 NHS patients could, potentially, be deregistered by June this year. That however never happened.
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