NHS dentistry in Dumfries and Galloway has been dealt another blow this week with the announcement that Lochthorn Dental Clinic is set to close.

South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth has once again called for urgent action from the Scottish Government to try and reverse the “growing crisis” in the region.

The dental practice has issued a letter to its patients to announce its plans to close, which means the deregistering of more than 2,500 NHS patients.

The practice said the severe shortage of dental professionals in the area was making patient care difficult to deliver in certain areas.

Colin Smyth said: “It seems that one dental practice after another is closing, axing or reducing NHS services at the moment, and the Scottish Government are still not doing enough

“We’ve been talking about the growing NHS dental crisis in our area for some time now but nothing has been done. The time for silence is over, we need urgent action.

“Patients in Dumfries will now have to join many others across the region in either having to pay for private care or try to find another dentist that provides NHS care but that is almost impossible locally. It is effectively the privatisation of NHS care in Dumfries and Galloway.

“The double whammy of the UK Government’s Brexit, which has meant there are almost no EU dentists coming to the UK anymore, and more significantly, the Scottish Government’s failure to properly fund dentists means this isn’t the first practice to close or remove NHS services and it certainly won’t be the last.

“Both Governments have been warned over and over that this would happen but they have completely ignored those warnings.

“Unless both governments face up to this crisis in our area, I really do fear that we are now seeing the death of NHS dental care in Dumfries and Galloway.”