Now doctors and dentists close amid NHS crisis

‘Dentists struggling to balance books’

A GP surgery and a dental clinic have closed this week as NHS Scotland’s recruitment crisis deepens.

Thousands of patients are affected by a doctor’s surgery in Tayside closing its doors after failing to attract GPs, while a dental practice closed without warning in Inverness.

The closures are the latest evidence of the strain Scotland’s NHS services are under amid tightening budgets and a shortage of staff.

The Bridge of Earn Surgery in Perthshire has given notice to terminate its contract with NHS Tayside from the end of the month. Its 3,500 patients will be transferred to other local practices.

And the Academy Dental Practice in Inverness shut without warning earlier this week, affecting 1,400 patients.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘Scotland simply cannot sustain the closure of GP and dental practices.

‘The SNP has been in sole charge of health here for more than 12 years, and it’s inexcusable that this hasn’t yet been sorted out.’

More than 100,000 patients north of the Border have had to change their GP service since 2014 because growing numbers of practices have closed their doors owing to doctor shortages.

In a statement about the Bridge of Earn Surgery, Professor Peter Stonebridge, NHS Tayside medical director, said: ‘We understand that patients may be very anxious.

‘However, the lack of a sustainable GP workforce – and the needs and limitations of the GP premises – have led us to take the decision to transfer the patients. This will ensure the practice population can continue to see a GP.’

Academy Dental Practice owner Syed Askari apologised to those affected, saying the practice had been placed into administration.

He said: ‘I have done everything in my powers to avoid this scenario but in the end it was just beyond my control.

‘In the last ten months or so things have been difficult to keep up with – the expenses – and one of the dentists leaving didn’t help the situation.

‘I was trying my best to keep it going somehow but, because of the financial constraints, it has come to this decision. I can only apologise to the patients and to the staff.’

NHS Highland is in talks with other local dentists on alternative arrangements for the future care of the practice’s NHS patients.

A spokesman said: ‘Former patients of the practice will be advised of the arrangements over the course of the next week.’

Scotland has more than 3,000 dentists, but 221 took early retirement between 2015 and 2018. The British Dental Association has warned that nearly 70 per cent of dentists have considered quitting amid a 30 per cent reduction in their taxable income over the past decade.

A spokesman for the British Dental Association said: ‘It’s unsurprising that dentists in Scotland are struggling to balance the books when they have seen a real-terms reduction in pay.

‘They have also been left fully exposed during the most prolonged period of austerity in recent history.’