Dental Nurse Team Lead

About The Organisation

NHS Orkney is committed to delivering excellent care to our 22,000 residents. Whether you’re new to the NHS or bringing experience from elsewhere, your skills will make a real difference. Our modern healthcare facility, The Balfour, brings together inpatient care, emergency services, outpatient clinics, diagnostics, GP practices and the Scottish Ambulance Service. We’re also investing in services across our outer isles, ensuring high‑quality care reaches every corner of Orkney.

We are guided by our core values that shape everything we do:
Open and honest, Respect and Kindness from how we care for our patients to how we support each other as colleagues.

With over 70 islands, 20 of them inhabited, Orkney offers a unique blend of natural beauty, close‑knit community and an opportunity for adventure. From dramatic coastlines and rare wildlife to rich cultural traditions and active lifestyles, it’s a place where compassion thrives and every day brings something new. Regularly named one of the UK’s best places to live, Orkney offers a lifestyle that’s both fulfilling and inspiring.

The successful candidate will lead a team of Dental Nurses and Dental reception/admin staff and will be a key member of the Dental Management team in NHS Orkney. The job also offers a rewarding, diverse range of duties. These include typical dental practice management type tasks to ensure the safe and efficient running of the service, the recruitment and retention of staff, leading on service improvements and much more.

The post‑holder will also have the opportunity to represent dentistry across the wider organisation within NHSO and represent Orkney at regional or national meetings.

We are looking for an experienced dental nurse who has what it takes to lead a team.

• Maybe you are already an experienced dental nurse manager or leader?
• Or maybe you have had a taste of leadership and would like to put this into practice with a new role?

The successful candidate would be putting their dental experience into action by supporting a team with professional and clinical matters, as well as using their organisational skills to ensure the smooth running of our Public Dental Service (PDS) clinics. Working with people (our patients, carers & public, our staff and our stakeholders) is key to this role and we are looking for someone with good people skills, working with kindness, openness and respect, as per NHS Orkney’s values.

This post will be based predominantly at Garson Dental Clinic in Stromness, the second largest town in Orkney. The postholder will also work from The Balfour in Kirkwall for part of each week. These two sites are the home of our Public Dental Service which delivers routine dental care as well as dental care for those with additional support needs or where specialist input is needed.

The successful candidate will work:
Full Time 37 hours per week – NHS Scotland is reducing their full‑time working week from 37 to 36 hours per week from 1 April 2026 but with no change in pay. This reduction will also be applied pro rata for part time staff. This post is Permanent
. It is a condition of this employment that you must live and remain a resident within the UK for the post in which you will be employed with NHS Orkney.

The salary for this post is Band 6 £ 41,668 – £50,775 and if residing on Orkney, you’ll also receive a Distant Islands Allowance of £1,657 pro rata per annum, adding extra value to your rewarding career with us. NHS Orkney also offers an attractive pension scheme, wide range of work‑life balance policies, employee assistance programme and various discounts to both local and national retailers.

If you share our vision and are ready to be part of Team Orkney, we’d love to hear from you. Your rewarding career starts here! We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process, and you will be asked whether you require any during your application. If there are additional requirements you would like to request, please…