Health / NHS still keen to sell off former St Olaf St dental clinic
NHS Shetland is applying for planning permission to change the use of the former St Olaf Street dentists in Lerwick in a bid to make the property more attractive to buyers.
The change of use application relates to turning the vacant property at 90 St Olaf Street into a four-bedroom residential building.
NHS Shetland put the building in the market a number of years ago, but a sale fell through.
The ongoing attempts to sell the building which was taken on by the NHS after former dentist Alan Owen retired in 2011, comes at a precarious time for dental services in Shetland.
Around 2,000 NHS patients are currently being deregistered from the privately run Lerwick Dental Practice, while a further 4,000 could be hit by the same fate later this year, should the row between the practice and NHS Shetland not be resolved.
The vulnerability was highlighted in the board’s oral health strategy, adopted in 2023, which agreed that the independent practice model does not work in island settings such as Shetland and therefore a strategy of “directly board managed combined service” should be pursued.
Meanwhile, the health board’s own public dental service (PDS) continues to be significantly understaffed with recruitment and retention a big problem.
According to the 2023 paper, Shetland’s population would need to be served by 15 dentists to meet the national dentist patient ratio of 1:1,500. There are currently eight.
“This is why in Shetland there needs to be a different approach in order to protect and make dental services both equitable and sustainable for the long term,” Dr Visocchi said.
Meanwhile an NHS Shetland spokesperson said regarding the former St Olaf St dentists that since a sale fell through “the board has applied for planning permission for a change of use to residential accommodation in the hope that the property may attract more potential buyers”.
“During the interim, the board did investigate its potential to be used as staff accommodation but the layout isn’t suitable for multiple occupants,” they added.
When the property first went on the market it had an asking price of offers over £240,000.
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