Early birds beat big queue sign on (From Gazette Series)

Early birds beat big queue sign on

EIGHT HUNDRED people queued for up to two hours outside a dental practice on Saturday to register with an NHS dentist.

Chipping Manor Dental Practice, in Wotton-under-Edge, which is run by Phil Loughnane and his wife Sheanna, held the registration event after employing two new dentists to cope with demand for their services. David Stephens will start in August and Manisha Mehendale will start a month later.

First to register at the practice was Simon Toase, who was rewarded with a bottle of champagne.

Mr Toase, of Ludgate Hill, said: "I was there at 6.30am because I was told there was going to be a massive queue and thought I might as well go early. I have heard of people camping overnight when they register and I was expecting a few people to be there already but there weren't.

"I am registered with a private dentist in Wotton but as there was an NHS dentist I thought I had better get on the list because there is a shortage of them."

Despite taking on 800 new patients, the practice is still taking registrations and can take up to 2,000.

Mrs Loughnane said: "The registration went really well. We registered 800 people but because we have taken on a second dentist we are able to take on 2,000 people and have 1,200 spaces left - although these are being taken up very quickly.

"The longest people waited was two and a quarter hours - we have heard of people waiting up to eight hours.

"The staff worked really hard and we were able to get through the queue really quickly. The first person started queuing at 6.30 but most people started queuing at 7am and we finished registering at 3.30pm.

"The queue went across the road and around the corner but it went down quite quickly."

The surgery is also relocating to new premises in the High Street as the practice has grown too large for the present location.

"The practice has been growing steadily since we started four years ago and we have just bought a new building," said Mrs Loughnane.

"We currently have three surgeries but the new building will have six. With the new dentists we will be using five of them with a spare if we need to grow any bigger."