New patients for the children’s orthodontic service have been put ’on hold’ while health chiefs find a replacement provider.

Health Minister Kate Beecroft said that those who were already in the programme were continuing to receive treatment, but no new admissions were being taken until a new provider was found - following the previous practitioner’s decision to pull out.

The Department of Health and Social Care has put the service out to tender again and hopes to have a provider in place by July.

’The department has worked hard to ensure that no one has been left without treatment, and as soon as the new provider or providers are in place, the new cases will be transferred accordingly,’ Mrs Beecroft told Tynwald last week.

In response to a question from David Ashford (Douglas North), the minister said she was confident that current orthodontic provision was ’largely meeting the needs of children and young people’.

She added: ’Primary care orthodontic provision is normally provided by a specialist practitioner under contract to the DHSC. The last contract ran to March 31, 2016, and a procurement exercise took place before the expiry of the contract, in accordance with financial regulations.

’Unfortunately, it was decided that none of the bidders could meet the specification. The department extended the contract that was in place at the time for a further six months, while the contract specification was rewritten and the terms amended.’

The contractor then told the department ’at short notice’ that she would not be bidding and would hand back responsibility for patients part-way through treatment or awaiting assessment.

That meant the department had to put in place a temporary service ’to ensure there was no gap in treatment for these children and young people,’ said Mrs Beecroft.

But new cases were put ’on hold’, so that patients could have ’continuity of care’.

’Essentially, they would start and finish their treatment with the same clinician once the new provision had been procured,’ she added.

’Any patients with a high need or cases that require urgent hospital treatment have been referred to the hospital-based orthodontist.’

Contracts could be awarded to more than one provider, she said. If that was the case, patients would have a choice.

’Patients and practitioners have been advised, if they feel a patient’s needs have changed and have become more urgent, to contact their dentist and request a new referral to be submitted to the department with as much information as possible.’