Is There A Dentist In Nottingham?
Got braces? In South Tyneside it’s highly unlikely. There’s a shortage of dentists there. There is such a shortage; a council chief has called on retired Nottingham dentists to come back in the workforce to help ease the waiting crisis.
The Gazette revealed that children up to 16 years of age had to wait nearly three years (146 weeks) for orthodontic work such as braces.
Adrian King, a retired dentist from Dorset was drafted in to help cut waiting lists for braces. He is now working three days a week at the Dean Road Dental Practice in South Shields. And this has brought down the borough’s waiting list for specialists to 112 weeks.
But recently in a meeting, members of South Tyneside Council’s children and young people and independent and healthy lives committee were told the situation is still ‘totally unacceptable.’
South Tyneside Primary Care Trust (PCT) came in for criticism over claims there had been too much time taken to respond to the crisis.
According to the British Dental Health Foundation, jaw and joint problems as well as headaches can be the result of delaying orthodontic treatment. Coun Jim Foreman, the council’s lead member for children and young people, said they could ease the waiting list crisis by re-employing recently retired staff.
He said: ‘South Tyneside lost two orthodontic surgeons through retirement. If I was with the PCT, I would go back to those dentists and see if they could go back to work part-time.’
PCT spokeswoman Linda Waggott said one of the factors contributing to the waiting list crisis was the person responsible for commissioning the Trust’s orthodontic services was on long-term leave. She added: ‘The situation remains totally unacceptable. For any child, their teeth are so important. A good set of teeth provides them with self-confidence, and a child which has a problem with their teeth can face bullying. I’d like to know how we found ourselves in this position in the first place.’
Tags: braces, orthodontic