On Tuesday 5th March, I called on Dame Andrea Leadsom MP, Minister for Public Health, Start for Life and Primary Care, to meet with me, local pharmacist Mohamed Fayyaz Haji and the local Integrated Care Board (ICB), to deliver a new NHS dental practice in Belfairs.
Mohamed Fayyaz Haji, known locally as Fizz, runs Belfairs pharmacy which provides a great range of services, including cholesterol and blood pressure checks, health advice and prescribing. He has recently acquired further premises so that he can expand into even greater levels of primary and community care such as phlebotomy, dermatology and now, hopefully, dentistry.
The Belfairs area at present does not have an NHS dentist available and the proposals from Fizz, which have premises secured and dentists lined up, have the potential to provide around 7000 units of dental activity. However, the ICB is required to commission this new dental practice which has not yet happened.
I called on the Minister to meet with us all to see the brilliant work being done at Belfairs pharmacy and to find a way through the current commissioning impasse. The Minister agreed to meet with me and I intend to follow up and push the commissioning of this new dental service through as a matter of urgency.
The provision of NHS dentistry is of great concern to Southend residents, and I am determined to do all I can to increase provision across our city. Fizz is already doing fantastic work for our city and his proposals for a new NHS dental practice in Belfairs are fantastic news, I will continue to do all I can to ensure this new practice is commissioned as soon as possible.
