NHS dentists in NHS Shetland

NHS Shetland has 2 NHS dental practices, covering Lerwick. Between December 2025 and March 2026, 1 of them ended up with more patients than they started with.

Nobody publishes a national list of who’s taking new NHS patients. NHS Inform’s find a dentist tool shows you where they are but not whether they’ve got space, and it tells you to ring and ask. Some boards do put out their own list, NHS Tayside for one, so it’s worth checking your board’s site too.

What’s below is whether a practice’s list actually grew between December 2025 and March 2026, the two most recent counts published. One that was signing people up then is a better bet than one whose list shrank. It’s not a promise though. You still have to phone, and some of that growth will be existing patients re-registering rather than new ones.

One more thing worth knowing: these are net figures. A practice that registered 300 people and lost 200 shows up the same as one that quietly took on 100. It also can’t tell you how many a practice is able to take at once, or whether they do it steadily or in bursts when a new dentist starts. This is a shorter list to phone, not a way of avoiding the phoning.

Where a practice grew but its postcode area didn’t, that’s flagged underneath. It usually means another practice nearby closed or lost a dentist and the patients were moved across, so the list grew without anyone new getting on.

Practices that took people on

Biggest increase first, but don’t read too much into the order. A big jump is often a practice absorbing patients from one that closed, and it can mean they’re now stretched — one reader waited eight weeks for an appointment at a practice near the top of a list like this. A small rise still means somebody was getting registered, so the full list below is worth a look too.

4 Market Street
Lerwick, Shetland · ZE1 0JN
6,300 patients
took on 38

Every NHS practice in NHS Shetland

Grouped by town, largest practice first. A few of these aren’t places you can register at all — the list PHS publish includes prison dental services, orthodontists and oral surgeons who only take referrals, and clinics that are mostly private. Anywhere with only a handful of NHS patients is marked.

Brae Dental Clinic
Brae Health Centre, Brae, Shetland · ZE2 9QJ
15,167 patients
list fell by 21
4 Market Street
Lerwick, Shetland · ZE1 0JN
6,300 patients
took on 38

Addresses and patient numbers come from Public Health Scotland’s Dental Practices and Patient Registrations dataset, March 2026 against December 2025. Practices close and change hands between publications, so some of this will be out of date.

NHS dentists at other health boards

Waiting for hospital dental treatment rather than looking for a dentist? Oral surgery waiting times at NHS Shetland.