The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Year-long backlog of NHS dental surgeries
Private firm called in to clear list
A private firm has been hired to help NHS Grampian gets its teeth into a year-long backlog of patients.
The Aberdeen Clinic will be paid more than £500,000 to assess and treat dental patients over the next six months.
Help has been brought in to tackle mounting waiting lists in the oral and maxillofacial surgical department.
Health board bosses hope 1,000 outpatients could be treated at NHS Grampian’s hospitals by the Cults-based firm’s staff before the beginning of April.
It is expected around 700 of those will have teeth removed.
Last night, health campaigners said the situation should never been allowed to reach this point but welcomed the news action was being taken.
At the beginning of last month, waiting lists for routine tooth extractions were more than a year, as outpatients waited 69 weeks for treatment.
Adult patients needing to go into hospital faced a wait of 39 weeks while inpatients awaiting treatment at Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital have been on the list for 54 weeks.
The Aberdeen Clinic’s staff will have access to assessment rooms and facilities for local anaesthetic operations, as well as operating under general anaesthetic in NHS theatres.
The additional weekend clinics will be fully staffed by the private firm, which is receiving £503,750 for the service.
An NHS Grampian spokeswoman said: “We have a significant number of people awaiting dental extractions, following a referral from their own dentist.
“In the longer term we hope to develop our capacity to perform this work in-house, but we are keen to reduce the number of patients waiting in the meantime.”
Professor Jamie Weir, spokesman for NHS Grampian patient group Pact, added: “This is a situation which really should not have been allowed to reach this point and unfortunately, yet again shows the underresourcing of services in the north-east.”