Manx Care to open NHS dental service at Ramsey cottage hospital

Manx Care is to open an additional NHS dental service at Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital next month, with a salaried dentist due to begin treating patients in the week starting 2 November.

The service will run from the hospital’s temporary dental unit, which had been set aside for Smile Dental. In an update on dental care in the north published on 19 October, Manx Care said the practice would no longer be moving in and had handed back its lease.

According to Manx Care, Smile Dental has instead confirmed it plans to reopen in Ramsey at a different site in late 2026, and more information will follow soon.

People registered with the practice will be able to return to it for their routine care once it reopens, Manx Care said. Until then, the health provider will go on seeing them for urgent and emergency treatment.

Manx Care said it would use the vacated unit to expand NHS dental provision for the duration of the agreement. It is also trying to recruit a second dentist.

To begin with, appointments will be offered to:

• people in the northern locality already on the NHS dental waiting list
• patients with no registered dentist who need emergency treatment
• Smile Dental patients who need urgent or emergency care before the practice restarts routine services at its new premises

Those on the northern waiting list will hear from Manx Care directly and do not need to contact it, the organisation said.

Manx Care said Smile Dental’s return and its own new service together would help cut waiting times and give more people access to dental care.

A Manx Care spokesperson said that, as well as welcoming Smile Dental’s progress towards reopening in Ramsey, the organisation had “taken the opportunity to introduce additional NHS dental provision” at the hospital.

The spokesperson said the two developments would “increase the overall availability of dental care on the Island and help improve access for patients who have been waiting for treatment”.