Also in March:
Work will begin on the new Spynie Dental Centre on Monday 16 March, and is expected to be completed by mid September 2009. The project will cost £2.5 million and is being jointly funded by NHS Grampian, NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Government.
The Spynie Dental Centre is a unique opportunity to improve existing services, and will bring dental students and newly qualified dentists to the Moray area.
The building will accommodate an outreach clinic with training space for six students from Aberdeen Dental School, as well as six surgeries bringing much needed access to NHS dentistry to the Elgin area. This will include a surgery specifically for wheelchair patients, and another to provide sedation facilities.
The other surgeries will provide access to NHS general dental services, and an opportunity for vocational training of new dental graduates. The new centre will also have much needed administration space, and a multi purpose training room for continuing dental education for all members of the dental team. In addition, it will house the administrative base for the ChildSmile Preventative Programme.
Assistant Clinical Dental Director, Malcolm Stewart, said, "I am very excited about the opportunity this project gives Elgin and the Moray area. Not only will it provide excellent training to dental undergraduate students, but it will allow access to much needed NHS dentistry in the area. Added to this it will provide state-of-the-art facilities for those with special needs which were previously only available in Aberdeen or Inverness.
"Hopefully this sort of initiative will bring undergraduates and new graduates to the Moray area, whilst providing support for existing practitioners through ongoing training and support."
Donald McLachlan, Operations Director for Morrison Construction, said: "We believe passionately in teamwork and it is a compliment to all those involved that today's event marks the start of work on Morrison's third dental practice for NHS Grampian. The other two projects now complete being in Buckie and Keith."
Ends.