Chiefs to be quizzed over dental cutbacks at Richardson Hospital in Barnard Castle

HEALTH bosses are to be grilled about the withdrawal of some dental services in Teesdale after their initial response was branded “feeble”.
A mobile dental service was never reinstated after being temporarily withdrawn from Middleton-in-Teesdale in 2014 – and this year patients moved to Richardson Hospital, in Barnard Castle, were told they will no longer be treated there either.
The matter was raised by Teesdale county councillor Richard Bell during a health overview and scrutiny committee meeting at County Hall earlier this month.
In response, the primary care commissioning manager for the region, Pauline Fletcher, said the mobile service was moved to Richardson Hospital because of difficulties in recruiting staff and that the vehicle was no longer fit for purpose.
At the time of the withdrawal, people were told the vehicle would be refurbished.
Ms Fletcher said: “Prior to this the numbers of patients accessing the mobile service was in decline. Additional sessions were put in place by the service provider (County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust) at Richardson Hospital for the patients who had previously accessed the mobile service. Again the numbers accessing these additional sessions has reduced over the last two years.”
She added that a review of the NHS was working to understand the need for general dental service provision at Richardson Hospital. Ms Fletcher said there are nine other NHS dental practices in the area, including Castle Dental Practice.
But county councillor Ted Henderson, who used both services, says even if patient numbers had gone down, demand for the services remained high.
He said: “When we had the service in Middleton they used to come once a week on Tuesdays and they admitted they could have been two days a week to cover the backlog.
“Towards the end they were coming up two days a week. At Richardson Hospital it was taking anywhere between two and three months to get an appointment.”
Now Cllr Bell is trying to exert pressure on NHS England and has successfully called for health bosses to appear before the scrutiny committee in January to explain why the services have been taken away.
He said: “I can’t be alone in thinking this was a feeble response. They say there are nine other dental practices in the area.
“What do they define as the area? There is only one dentist in Barnard Castle, Castle Dentists.
“Richardson is an expensive PFI (private finance initiative) hospital and as well as the effect on patients, that is all the more reason to challenge arbitrary withdrawals of service.”