A DENTAL practice which would have treated hundreds of people in one of Scotland's most poorly served areas has been scuppered due to a planning wrangle over the shape of its roof.
Faced with about 35,000 people in the area without registration to a public practice, NHS Highland had hoped to help address the shortfall of dentists.
The health board, mindful of the problems in one town in the Cairngorm national park, lodged a
planning application for a new practice in an attempt to make a dent in its waiting lists.
But the much-needed service will not come to fruition because of a row over the roof of the proposed building.
NHS Highland had hoped the three- surgery dental suite in Grantown-on-Spey - where 1,392 people are not registered with a dentist - would shorten its waiting lists, as happened last autumn, when hundreds of people signed up to new surgeries in Wick and Culloden.
The suite, however, will never appear - because the building the health board is proposing would not, according to the local authority, fit in with the look of the national park.
Highland Council is expected to refuse the health board's planning application next week. Along with Cairngorms National Park Authority, it believes the flat-roofed blueprints, if implemented, would "set a precedent which would be likely to encourage applications for development of poor design elsewhere, causing further harm to visual amenity and the character of the national park".
Both bodies do recognise the need for more dental services in the area, with the council's report adding that "it is unnecessary to recite in detail the problems which Highland communities have experienced in securing dental treatment under the health service".
Nevertheless, they would prefer a pitched roof be incorporated as part of the design, but the report suggests that NHS Highland is against such moves, citing exorbitant costs.
It is understood the health board believes a flat roof offers the quickest and most efficient way of opening a practice in Grantown-on-Spey, but it is now resigned to going back to the drawing board.
The practice was to have been erected to the rear of the Ian Charles Cottage Hospital where three sheds currently stand.
The stand-off means the region, already blighted by a lack of dentists, will further suffer from a lack of new staff.
Official statistics show that between January 2005 and March this year, 59,385 people in the NHS Highland area saw their registrations lapse, nearly equivalent to the population of Inverness.
Catherine Lush, clinical dental manager at NHS Highland, told The Scotsman the health board was preparing to reconsider its plans for a practice in the area.
She said: "Unfortunately, this will delay NHS Highland's plans to establish a dental service in Grantown-on-Spey. It was anticipated the service would be in place in early 2008, but we will be examining alternative locations as an immediate priority."
Last November saw the opening of the new Lochshell Dental Clinic in Wick and an expansion to a clinic in Culloden, offering services to about 5,000 people.
Lochshell provides a base for NHS dentists in Caithness, while three extra surgeries were put in place at Culloden.
The current application, recommended for refusal, will be heard next Tuesday at a meeting of Highland Council's planning committee for the area .
MORE DENTISTS, BUT ACCESS AN ISSUE
STATISTICS released this week show the number of NHS dentists in Scotland increased last year, but the number of adults able to access NHS treatment is still falling.
As of March this year, 2,474 NHS dentists were working in Scotland - up from 2,301 in 2006. But despite this, and an extra £100 million spent on NHS dental services in 2006-7, the number of adults registered with an NHS dentist fell to 46.2 per cent, compared to 49.9 per cent in 2000.
Child registrations rose from 66.8 per cent in 2006 to 67.2 per cent this year, but are down on the 67.4 per cent seen in 2000. There were also wide variations between regions. In some areas, less than a third of adults were registered with an NHS dentist.
The full article contains 708 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
