Over 650 dental appointments lost due to patients not attending.
Patients are being urged to cancel dental appointments rather than just not attending in order to ease the pressure on vital services.
Between 1 January and 30 May this year, care at 658 appointments with NHS Shetland’s Dental Service was wasted due to patients failing to attend.
This amounts to a total of 328 hours and 10 minutes of valuable clinical time, which was lost at NHS Shetland sites during this period alone.
Approximately 44 days were lost in total - this is equivalent to 722 fillings or 361 root canal treatments.
Director of Dentistry, Antony Visocchi said: “The number of patients not attending appointments is a serious problem for the NHS as a whole and in Shetland, we know we could offer those appointments to other patients. “Despite the lifting of Covid restrictions, as a service, we are still working under a great deal of pressure which is why avoiding missed appointment is so important.
“Unless we see the failures to attend decrease, we will have little choice but to consider the introduction of charges for missed appointments. This is a step we are reluctant to take so we would encourage patients to update us as soon as possible if a cancellation needs to be made."