Bristol patients left without an NHS dentist
Patients in Bristol have been left without an NHS dentist following the closure of Bupa Dental Care’s St Pauls practice.
Since Bupa Dental Care confirmed that it was closing or selling over 80 practices across the country, patients have been trying to make alternative arrangements, but those in Bristol are struggling to find any surgeries in the city taking on new patients.
Debra Newrick, who has been a patient at St Pauls for over a decade, said that she had tried to contact all of the practices listed by Bupa Dental Care in the email sent to patients about the closure. The closest practice she could find was in Chepstow in Wales.
Debra has been looking for a dentist for the last two years because she found it difficult to get appointments for her and her son at the Bupa surgery in St Pauls. Despite calling several practices, she was never able to find any that had free places. Now, she can’t find a practice to move to and she has researched private fees, which are not affordable. The average cost of a check-up, she said, was around three-times the NHS charge.
Penny Gray, a fellow patient at the St Pauls practice, has had a similar experience since Bupa announced that the surgery would close at the end of June. She discovered that the closest Bupa practice to her that was taking on new patients was in Chippenham, Wiltshire. Both patients have found that it’s very easy to get a private dental appointment in Bristol but virtually impossible to access NHS services.
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