Listen
Next step towards a third dental school for Scotland
05/02/2008
Aberdeen Dental School will take a step closer to becoming reality today.
The draft business case for the development of the new £15 million dental school in Aberdeen and stage 2 of the Dental Institute will be presented to NHS Grampian Board for formal approval today.
Minister for Public Health Shona Robison has welcomed the news. She said:
"The creation of a new dental school in Aberdeen is a major priority for the Scottish Government. The £15 million initiative to develop the new school will provide modern facilities for restorative dentistry, orthodontics and special needs/community dentistry.
"There has already been substantial interest from prospective students considering applying to the new dental school.
"Once open the school will increase the number of dental students in training."
The project includes the development of the new dental school in Aberdeen and stage two of the Dental Institute to provide permanent facilities for:
- Specialist and intermediate care services (restorative dentistry, orthodontics) and their supporting infrastructure (Labs, Radiology etc)
- Salaried and Community Dentistry
The dental school will have 80 graduate entrant students (20 per year - 15 in the first year of establishment 2008) and in due course will also make use of outreach facilities across the North of Scotland in addition to the base in Aberdeen.
On completion, the Dental Institute, including the Dental School, will represent a unique and high quality facility which will provide comprehensive oral/dental services and put Grampian in an excellent position to train, recruit and retain dental professionals.
The course at the new dental school will be a four-year graduate entry programme. It will be designed and managed by the University of Aberdeen and the University of Dundee Dental School.
The project is a partnership between NHS Grampian, Aberdeen University, Dundee University Dental School, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Scottish Government. These stakeholders are represented in the Project Board and Project Team. The lead from the Health Directorate is the Chief Dental Officer.
The Scottish Government requires that the new school is operational by October 2008. This will be achieved by using the existing Dental Institute facilities as only first year students, initially, need to be accommodated.
An option appraisal has been undertaken and the preferred option as set out in the business case is to provide most of the educational and clinical functions in a new building linked to the existing Dental Institute, with the existing first and second floors being upgraded to accommodate support functions. The estimated capital cost at this stage is £15.352 million.
The total current estimate of the additional revenue costs of the project is £5.421 million. The total costs will be met by the Scottish Government and NHS Grampian.
The Health Directorate have approved the scoping of the project through an initial agreement document that has been cleared by the Capital Investment Group. The Outline Business case was approved by the NHS Grampian Asset Investment Group at its meeting on January 28, 2008 and it goes before the NHS Board on February 5, 2007.