Scottish NHS dentist access – 95% registered and shocking 21% better than UK but they don’t want you to know that

BBC Scotland – ‘Dentist David McColl says there is a “two-tier” system in dentistry with more practices going fully private‘

By Professor John Robertson OBA

BBC Scotland today, all day:

Six Scottish council areas are “dental deserts” with no practices able to take on new adult NHS patients within three months, BBC News research has found. Just one in every four dental practices in Scotland said they could offer NHS appointments to new patients within that timeframe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd9023018o

This was another self-selecting shoddy research project with findings based on ‘those responding’

Not in the report:

From Public Health Scotland in August 2024:

5,176,332 people were registered with an NHS dentist as at 30 June 2024 (94.5% of the Scottish population).

621,767 extensive clinical examinations were paid in the quarter ending 30 June 2024 under the new pay arrangements. In total, over 1.7million have been undertaken since the NHS dental payment reform was introduced.1

In England:

Since the current dental contract was introduced in 2006, there has been no system of registration for dentistry in England. This means that, unlike with GPs, patients can attend any dentist that provides NHS services for a course of treatment.2

‘Can?’ What percentage did?

As of June 30, 2023, 43% of adults in England had seen an NHS dentist in the previous 24 months, and 56% of children had seen an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months. 3

In a 2023 survey by the British Dental Association, over half of dentists [in England] who responded said they had reduced the amount of NHS work they do since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost three quarters said they were intending to reduce, or further reduce, their NHS commitment in 2023.4

r than the 94.6% in Scotland. So access to NHS dentistry in Scotland 21% higher (16.6% of 78) than in UK.

Sources:

  1. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-dental-data-monitoring-report/nhs-dental-data-monitoring-report-quarter-ending-june-2024/
  2. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9597/
  3. https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/news/2023-08-24/annual-nhs-dental-statistics-england-our-response#:~:text=New%20figures%20published%20today%20in%20the%20annual,months%2C%20still%20below%20pre%2Dpandemic%20levels%20of%2059%.
  4. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9597/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20dentists%20per,their%20NHS%20commitment%20in%202023.

Finally – From a UK Parliament report in 2023:

1 in 5 Britons (22%) are currently not “registered” with a dentist. Of those who were not “registered” 37% said this was because they couldn’t find an NHS dentist.

Only 78% in UK registered, 16.6% lower than the 94.6% in Scotland. So access to NHS dentistry in Scotland 21% higher (16.6% of 78) than in UK.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhealth/964/report.html

The OBA – https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116

7 thoughts on “Scottish NHS dentist access – 95% registered and shocking 21% better than UK but they don’t want you to know that”

  1. Expect that champion of Scotland , the millionaire dentist , to immediately jump to the defence of Scottish dentistry ……. any minute now Anas Sarwar will put the true facts on Scotland’s dental position and refute the BBC misinformation ……here comes Scottish Labour’s Sarwar to defend his colleagues from this unfair allegation …. any minute now …

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    1. Said millionaire dentist must be as bad at dentistry as he is at politics. Here’s a story well worth getting his teeth into, but they’re so bad that he gives up less than halfway through, unable to finish the job.

      Presumably the old saying ‘Physician heal thyself’ doesn’t apply to dentists.

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  2. my personal experience is that my dentist retired he did nhs treatment it was excellent and easy to get an appointment within days , the women that took over the practice changed it to private only , within a year, ive not been back since my visit a year ago and i have not registered with a new dentist yet but i bet im still recorded on nhs records as being on her books

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    1. Maybe you should just register with a new nhs dentist!!!…….This report stems from a usual waste of tax payers money FOI from Sarwar’s British Labour Party in Scotland and then really badly twisted to not reflect the real figures….labour have never been good at basic arithmetic and are expert propagandists against Scotland’s people with the help of their media and committees and associations and unions all controlled from the HQ in London against Scottish democracy…..but then it would seem we are easily fooled. We need to smart up long before the Holyrood elections or we are open for even more ruin than the unionist parties in wastemonster have already inflicted on our Scottish Nation!!!

      JB

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  3. Aye, yet another Lazy Winters special, attributed to ‘ Paul Ward and Lisa Summers ‘, those bastions of impartiality and insecurity.

    I saw this ‘dental desert’ line teed up on IIRC BBC ‘Debate Shite’, yet what struck home most was not only was it centred on D&G which bluntly sprawls, but this particular lady had problems which were not mainstream dentistry, and SHE was seeking to be a patient very far removed from the norm of D&G patients being registered as kids.

    So pardon my total lack of surprise the ‘dental desert’ has now supplanted the failed ‘ferries’ and “QEUH” gambits by James Cook as focus, although I fully anticipate a Millie’s teeth connection to appear as ‘operation gums’ proceeds..

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  5. Pingback: Glenn Campbell and the ‘significant underperformance in key public services like the NHS’ that does not survive a collision with the evidence – Talking-up Scotland

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