NEARLY 4,000 people have expressed their interest in registering with Wellington’s soon-to-open new NHS Wellington Dental Care surgery, so many that the practice has had to suspend the registration facility.

DentistryForYou said the suspension was to ‘ensure patient safety and fairness’, but it hoped to reopen the facility ‘in due course’.

NHS Somerset is working with DentistryForYou to open the new practice in a converted unit on Lowmoor Industrial Estate, Tonedale.

It identified the town as one of the areas of the county where more NHS appointments were most needed.

Interest in the new venture has been extremely high with 3,984 expressions of interest received by September 18, 53 per cent of them from the TA21 postcode area and 36 per cent from the wider TA postcode area.

NHS Somerset chief medical officer Dr Bernie Marden said: “I am pleased to say that more than half of the people expressing an interest come from the Wellington area.

“We know this practice on its own will not be able to see everybody or solve all the longstanding issues facing local people, but it is very positive for the town and will help thousands more people access NHS dental care.

“The new practice is one of a range of measures we are introducing to improve access to NHS dentistry in Somerset.”

Dr Marden said unlike GP surgeries, NHS dental practices do not operate a system of permanent registration and cannot impose geographical limits on patient access.

Instead, patients are seen for a specific course of treatment, and, technically, once the treatment is complete, the arrangement with the dentist comes to an end.

He said it meant patients were not automatically entitled to ongoing care with the same dentist or practice, although many patients did return to the same practice for future courses of treatment over a period of many years.

DentistryForYou group manager Elizabeth Fernandez said: “We are looking forward to welcoming patients to the new practice.

“Interest has been extremely high and we have had to limit expressions of interest to ensure that numbers do not exceed capacity.

“Once the practice is established, we hope to be able to reopen the opportunity for people to express an interest and we will work with NHS Somerset and other local partners to keep people up to date.”

The practice, which is creating up to 12 jobs, is due to open on a phased basis from mid-October, with a formal opening scheduled for early December.

NHS Somerset is commissioning 20,000 ‘units of dental activity’ (UDA) per year from the practice.

Under national NHS rules, UDAs are used to pay high street dentists, which are independent private businesses.

UDAs are like tokens and when a practice sees a patient, they use up a number of units, each of which is worth an amount of money.

The number of units used varies depending on the complexity of the treatment provided.

The practice will not be accepting in-person registrations at the premises, and patients without a pre-booked appointment will be turned away.