Sourced by Donald McGregor:

You can often find positive news about NHS Scotland and even the Scottish Government in BBC UK reports about what is happening in England. They don’t have that everyday predisposition to find something bad about Scotland that BBC Scotland has. Currently, they’re quite interested in criticising this right-wing Tory government which they know would happily shut them down and are prepared to use comparative evidence from Scotland if it suits their purpose.

When they do this, they starkly reveal BBC Scotland’s bias by omission in ignoring the story.

Yesterday, they had this:

Thousands of people in England are potentially unable to access urgent dental services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The British Dental Association (BDA) told the BBC that dentists in England are being bombarded by calls from patients in real pain, but there is often nowhere to send them.

At the moment, all routine dental care has stopped. On 20 March, a letter was sent by England’s chief dental officer asking practices to “radically reduce the number of routine check-ups”.Five days later, practices were told to stop all routine treatment “until otherwise advised”. The decision was made in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

For patients with emergency dental problems, NHS England is in the process of creating local Urgent Dental Care hubs (UDCs) across the country. However, the BDA says only a tiny number of these sites have been set up so far.

Then at the end of the piece we find this:

The BDA says Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seem to be far more advanced in getting UDC centres up and running compared with England. The Scottish government says that its dental practices can offer advice over the phone. However, where urgent or emergency dental care is required, it says dental care centres are available in every NHS board across Scotland.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52197788