Intrepid Reporting Scotland investigators were in Dunoon yesterday, called in by a councillor (party not mentioned) to claim no new NHS provision.

By today, they’d found a worried local mum and could now claim “Patients across the Cowal Peninsula are struggling to access NHS dental care.”

There is, of course, a 44 minute ferry crossing from Dunoon to Gourock, which has been operating its 13 crossings each way, every day, at 100% reliability for some time now. The local authority, Inverclyde says:

All local dentists are accepting NHS patients. Please register with a dentist locally from the list below.

https://www.inverclyde.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/health-services-health-improvement-wellbeing/dentists

There are 6 in Gourock and contiguous Greenock.

The BBC Report then finishes with UK-wide data, ignoring this:

95.4% of the Scottish population were registered with an NHS dentist as at 30 September 2022. Nearly all adults living in the most deprived areas were registered with an NHS dentist in September 2022, compared to 91.9% in the least deprived areas.

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation/dental-statistics-nhs-registration-and-participation-24-january-2023/

Jackie Baillie – “Nearly all? Nearly!? It won’t do!”

Meanwhile in England:

Thousands of children in England facing ‘heartbreaking’ waits for NHS dental care

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/19/thousands-of-children-in-england-facing-heartbreaking-waits-for-nhs-dental-care

Labour comment on the above? Nope. Not a word.

Footnote: The councillor in question resigned, with his wife, from the SNP in 2022.