The NHS Somerset integrated care board (ICB) has been striving to increase NHS appointments within ‘dental deserts’ – that is, areas within the county where relatively few people can access an NHS dentist, forcing them to go private or go without treatment.
Health bosses confirmed in early-September that Wellington Dental Care, based on the Lowmoor Industrial Estate at the town’s northern edge, would begin taking expressions of interest from local residents, with a phased opening beginning in October.
The practice, operated by Dentistry for You, had to pause these expressions of interest in late-September after nearly 4,000 patients got in touch asking for an appointment.
But the practice and NHS Somerset have now confirmed that further NHS patients will be able to be seen before the festive period after the successful recruitment of two new members of staff.
Unlike GP surgeries, people needing dental treatment are not registered to a specific practice or treatment centre – a change which came in with the much-maligned dental contracts agreed by the previous Labour government in 2006.
While GP surgeries have specific catchment areas, anyone in the UK can make an appointment with a Somerset dentist – with many local residents often having to travel outside of the county to receive treatment.
Sukeina Kassam, NHS Somerset’s director of primary care, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service during a visit to the practice on Tuesday (October 14) that every effort was being made to prioritise patients in the Wellington area.
She said: “We recognise that one practice can’t meet all of Somerset’s demand, but this marks a really exciting step forward for the town, helping thousands more people access the NHS dental care they deserve.
“It’s one of several important initiatives we’re introducing to strengthen and expand NHS dentistry across Somerset.”
NHS Somerset has commissioned Wellington Dental Care to provide 20,000 ‘units of dental activity’ (UDAs) every financial year – with different levels of treatment constituting different amounts of UDAs (for instance, a basic check-up will take up fewer UDAs than an extraction or root canal surgery).
Ms Kassam said: “We don’t need to go back to the government to increase this – it’s something my team will look at, working with the provider.
“We will need to take into account the financial envelope that we have for dentistry, but the local commissioning of UDAs sits with us.”
There is insufficient funding to provide NHS dental care for the entire population, with available resources only expected to support around half of the county’s residents.
Of the 4,000 initial expressions of interest received for NHS appointments, 53.1 per cent came from the TA21 postcode area (comprising Wellington and the surrounding villages), with a further 36.2 per cent coming from the wider TA postcode area.
One of the patients to benefit was West Buckland resident Heather Bubb, who had been struggling to meet the rising cost of private dental care on her pension.
She said: “I never thought that getting old, having paid my tax and national insurance throughout my working life, that I would be in this situation.
“It was 2023 when my dentist stopped doing NHS work – my last visit was in November that year.
“Last year, I struggled to pay for my private dental care out of my pension and when I got a quote of £5,649 for further treatment, I couldn’t afford it and had to stop treatment.
“I am so grateful to have a new local dentist that is offering NHS appointments and that my husband and myself will now be able to access NHS dental care locally. My husband hadn’t seen a dentist for five years before now.
“I had my check up on October 13 and had a very comfortable experience with a delightful lady dentist upstairs, who said all was fine.
“She talked about the one tooth that I may have problems with later, but can leave it alone for the moment, unless it needs treatment.”
For Dr Nadeem Harunani, who works at the new practice, this opening marks the culmination of at least two years’ work, working with the NHS to secure the contract and finding a suitable premises from which to operate.
He said: “My family started this business in 1986, and we’ve always offered NHS services.
“We feel that everyone should have the ability to have access to both NHS and private treatments. We encourage our dentists to take on NHS work.
“We have opened in other areas that have been deemed as ‘dental deserts’, and off the back of that we have learnt how to manage demand – offering an online platform to express your interest in becoming a patient, as opposed to the famous incident in Bristol where you had a line of people down to the end of the road.
“We’ve been trying to make this opening as smooth as possible. We anticipated the demand, and by the grace of God we’ve managed to capture as much of that initial demand as possible.”
The practice currently has three staffed treatment rooms, each of which has a clinician and associated support staff tied to it.
Dr Harunani said that two further clinicians would be joining before mid-December, which would allow the practice to reopen expressions of interest for NHS treatment.
He said: “We ask people to keep an eye on our website, and more information will become available there as soon as can accept more patients – and we will be able to once those dentists are working for us.”
Taunton and Wellington MP Gideon Amos has welcomed the new practice, and said he would keep pushing the government to improve dental access in his constituency and across Somerset.
He said: “The country, and Wellington and Taunton in particular, desperately needs and wants to see our NHS put back where it should be – that was my main campaign in the general election.
“I’m delighted we have now got the result we wanted, a new NHS dentist for our area.
“A lot more needs to be done, but this is a great first step for the far too many who became locked out of NHS dental provision in recent years.”
Two additional dental practices are set to open in Somerset by early-2026 – one in Chard, the other in Crewkerne, with the precise dates to be confirmed in the near-future.