An Isle of Wight campaigner handed in a petition to Richard Quigley MP in Freshwater yesterday (Wednesday) – dismayed at the imminent closure of the area’s only NHS dentist.
Full-time carer Ieuan Jehu’s plea to save Freshwater, Totland and Yarmouth’s only NHS dentist has gathered 2,125 signatures and is aimed at secretary of state for health and social care Wes Streeting.
Ieuan’s started his petition, ‘Save My Dentist Freshwater’, on August 24.
It claims closing the mydentist on Avenue Road would leave a population of “around 10,000” with “no access” to “NHS dental care”.
The appeal reads: “We call upon the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, to pressure the MyDentist group to delay the closure of their Freshwater practice until another company can be found to take over the delivery of NHS dental services in the FYT area.”
Ieuan had “heard rumours” the dentist was closing and checked with staff.
Ieuan said he should really have aimed the petition at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, the body responsible for commissioning NHS dental services on the Island.
“They haven’t been living up to that duty”, he added.
Ieuan commented on the petition:
“The support locally has been very good – very few people I’ve spoken to have not wanted to sign it.
“There’s a lot of people who have no access to dentistry at all and they want to sign as well.
“I’ve had petitions in a lot of the shops and businesses round here and there’s 2,125 people who have signed – that’s around 20 per cent of the population of this area.”
Richard Quigley, MP for Isle of Wight West, said:
“Dentistry was one of the things I campaigned on – the complete lack of NHS dentistry across the whole Island, let alone the west, is an absolute nightmare.
“This isn’t just about people turning up and getting the perfect smile – this is about people ending up in severe and chronic pain because they can’t afford private dentistry.
“This is too important for me just to turn up to a photo opportunity – this is something that I have absolutely campaigned on and will continue to campaign on as long as I’m an MP.”
A spokesperson for mydentist said:
“Unfortunately, we’ve been forced to make the difficult decision to close our practice in Freshwater on October 31.
“This is not a decision we’ve taken lightly. Dental practices across the UK continue to face a severe shortage of NHS dentists, hitting areas such as the Isle of Wight particularly hard.
“Our team have worked tirelessly to provide care for as many people as possible, but the ongoing recruitment crisis means the practice is sadly no longer sustainable.
“We are writing to all patients affected by this change and want to reassure them that all planned appointments before October 31 will continue as normal.
“We would like to express our sincerest thanks to our outstanding practice team for the hard work and dedication they’ve shown in supporting the community over the last few years.”
James Roach, director of primary care for NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said:
“We’ve been working hard to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry on the Island and have been doing all we can to maintain NHS provision at the My Dentist practice in Freshwater. We have had a range of very productive conversations with key local stakeholders on solutions to maintain NHS dentistry in Freshwater and all options are currently on the table.
“We are also exploring whether the NHS funded Dentaid mobile dental unit, which offers free NHS dental care to eligible groups, can visit the area to offer further NHS provision in the interim period having so far treated hundreds of patients since the service launched.
“We’re also having conversations with NHS dentists who want to come and work on the island, so we are confident that we can start to build more resource and offer more appointments for NHS patients to develop a sustainable dentistry service on the Isle of Wight.
“We will continue to keep local people updated as we progress these plans and provide an update as soon as we’re able to.”
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