Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Herald today, the above, and:
Recent figures show there is a 17-21% gap in access to dental care between Scotland’s most and least deprived communities, The Herald can reveal.
The Scottish Conservatives have described the inequality gap as “shameful” and the party says it has been caused by “decades of SNP mismanagement”.
What they are talking about here is clearly uptake and not the access all groups have to NHS dentistry in Scotland. From NHS dental data monitoring report Quarter ending March 2025 published in May 2025:
5,218,597 people were registered with an NHS dentist as of 31 March 2025 (95.8% of the Scottish population*).
622,519 extensive clinical examinations were paid in the quarter ending 31 March 2025 under the new pay arrangements. In total, over 3.2 million have been undertaken since the NHS dental payment reform was introduced.
In the quarter ending 31 March 2025, children and adults from the most deprived areas (SIMD 1) were less likely to have had contact with NHS primary dental care than those in the least deprived areas (48,028 compared to 56,779 children and 137,040 compared to 166,013 adults). A similar pattern was seen in participation rates across the previous two years.
Clearly those from more deprived areas are not taking up NHS dentistry to the same extent but to suggest that is ‘SNP mismanagement’ when access in 95.8% is pushing credulity.
What’s access like in England?
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.
Note that access to NHS dentistry is worsening in England. Only 78% in ‘UK’ [England] registered, 17.8% lower than the 95.8% in Scotland. So access to NHS dentistry in Scotland is 22.6% higher (17.8% of 78) than in UK:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhealth/964/report.html
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
In Edinburgh alone, there are currently 36 dental practices currently taking on new NHS patients.
Click to access Lothian-Dental-Practices-Accepting-NHS-Patients.pdf
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This is another example of lazy and, probably, partisan journalism.
A press release from the Conservative Party is accepted and published uncritically, without subjecting it to scrutiny and fact checking.
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It’s propaganda, not journalism that’s the issue here. It’s full on and it’s just going to get ‘worse’ be in no doubt at all about that.
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It must be completely exhausting, this business of continually having to refute dubious claims in the press.
How much easier it would be if every criticism of Scotland and the Scottish Government was truly trying to make things better instead of just the usual carpings of disgruntled unionists.
It would be enlightening to be able to agree with some criticism and say what can we do to make it better rather than always feeling we need to be on the defence.
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It’s actually very sinister and a scourge on so called journalism and the media as well as those who give them their orders. Most of the ‘Scottish’ media so called, are in fact HQ’d outwith Scotland. Most are in London and are connected to much bigger corporations. they can be found at Companies House, and if not HQ’d in England, much of their staff are English, mainly no doubt the ones in the top jobs.
We do need to be on the defensive, and the SNP need to find ways to debunk the BritNats’ propaganda being deployed against the people of Scotland. It’s a disgrace it’s incessant and very damaging. The front pages of the ‘National’ today imo showed the SNP soft touch, oh no what went wrong at the by election, we need to do better to attain indy. No, you need to point out exactly what a BritNat ‘unionist’ full-on take over of the Scottish parliament would mean for the people of Scotland, and how it would be utterly disastrous. The ‘National’ needs to list on their front pages, every single day, just what the terrible consequences of an English party takeover of the Scottish parliament would mean for Scotland.
There’s always room for improvement, the SNP are not perfect, but we will never see the so called MSM putting out balanced, unbiased reports whatsoever. The English establishment have far too much to lose if Scotland keeps voting for Scottish parties in their own country, and especially if independence gets close to becoming a reality. 😦
Sorry long comment and I should be doing a million other things right now. Yikes.
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I know that feeling. Should be doing a million other things.
BUT to be able to refute all the nonsense printed and broadcast by the MSM requires control of that media, something Scotland doesn’t have.
I’m on X every day, doing what little I can to stem the flood of unionist patter. They have the upper hand on that platform, flooding X with their bile.
The National and TuS are lone voices there and, although I hate to say it, both are continually roasted by the unionists who prefer the “facts” provided by the Express.
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Aye, yet another Sandesh Gulhane https://archive.ph/RsWDK deception piece ghost written for the Herald…
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Alex Salmond got a new Dental training clinic built in the North East.
Some dentists left because of Brexit.
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