The Herald front-paging a survey paid for by the British Dental Association, the dentists’ trade union and carried out by YouGov, the pollster which can never find a Yes majority and proven most likely to downplay SNP leads.
In the Guardian last week:
Almost a third of people in England now use private dentistry, with a sharp rise in the number of poorer households forced to pay for fillings and extractions. The scarcity of NHS care means the proportion of people turning to private dental services jumped from 22% in 2023 to 32% late last year, the health service’s patient watchdog found. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/09/nhs-dental-crisis-private-dentist-patient-incease-england
We’re hearing nothing even vaguely similar from the media in Scotland and you can be sure they’d love it if they could.
Here’s why:
Nearly twice as many Scots have access to an NHS dentist as those in England
The above table from Public Health Scotland today, reveals a very high level of access to free NHS dental treatment in Scotland – 90% of children and 97% of adults with 100% access for some age groups.
When I searched for equivalent data for England, what I found shocked me. From the ONS in September 2024:
Overall, 52.1% of adults reported having an NHS dentist, 34.2% have a private dentist, 13.5% did not have a dentist and 0.2% used a dental hospital.
Females were more likely (54.1%) than males (50.0%) to have an NHS dentist, while males were more likely (16.0%) than females (11.1%) to not have a dentist.
Those aged between 16 and 24 years were significantly more likely to have an NHS dentist (70.9%), compared with all other age groups; meanwhile those aged between 25 and 44 years were significantly more likely to not have a dentist compared with all other age groups. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/experiencesofnhshealthcareservicesinengland/september2025#dental-care
Imagine this was the other way round? BBC Scotland would have us sick to the back etc….
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Looks like Public Health Scotland is going to be the Unionists next target.
The Herald article quotes a YouGov survey/poll that claimed people were not happy with Dental provision in Scotland.
Today I received a survey from YouGov asking questions about Public Health Scotland and whether people were satisfied with it and so forth. Expect the ‘results’ will provide another front page for the Herald at some point.
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Public health provision has long suffered from Westminster-imposed austerity, impacting negatively on population health in England and having knock on negative budget consequences for NI, Scotland and Wales.
‘Since 2015, public health services have suffered some of the biggest cuts to funding and service provision within health services in England and Wales. The cuts began in November 2015 when the Conservative government separated the budgets for public health, education and training, capital and national bodies. By 2024, the budget for public health services was 26% lower in real-terms compared to 2015/16. (my emphasis)
‘There is little sign of the current Labour government improving funding, with allocations for three years from April 2026 meaning funding will only keep pace with inflation.
‘Public health services provide preventative services, including smoking cessation, drug and alcohol services, children’s health services and sexual health services, as well as broader public health support across local authorities and the NHS. The importance of public health services to the economic strength of a country is overlooked by those in power. If there is reduced investment in vital preventive services population health worsens, health inequalities widen and less people are economically active.’
Source https://nhscampaign.org/issues/staff-shortages-copy-4/
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Which was an area covered in some detail by Prof Sridhar in her most recent book. Public Health Scotland to give it its due does produce lots of reports and statistics relating to NHS Scotland’s performance. This was a role they took over from Information Services Division a few short years ago.
The reports and stats published by PHS are routinely ignored by the media. This story in the Herald is a case in point. It quotes a YouGov survey but ignores the Quarterly report on Dentistry which paints a different more detailed picture.
As I said in my initial post it looks as if they are now going to target Public Health Scotland in a similar manner.
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Wow 26% that’s crazy high, absolutely criminal. Starmer’s Labour are no better than the tories, and as you say the EngGovs’ cuts have a negative effect on services/NHS in Scotland. Well as Starmer said not long being installed as PM, things will get ‘worse’. He wasn’t kidding.
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had an NHS dentist that was then taken over by a private practice that said they would continue to treat existing NHS patients only to renege on that once they got established and tried to force us down the route of a dental plan – now have another NHS dentist and they are excellent, no issues getting emergency appointments and get a robust annual checkup. All in all I’ve never had a bad experience with NHS in any capacity and can only assume it’s the small minority that have issues that are them magnified by the MSM and unionist parties as NHS super bad and it’s all the SNP’s fault- fortunately the majority who use the NHS can see through the mis representations
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I don’t understand why so many NHS dentists ( in England ) are turning to Private Practice . I could not afford private dental treatment and I expect this is the case with most in England – so why are English dentists intent on reducing their clientele ?
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Plenty people can afford it though…most people have to pay for some of their treatment even if they can get some for ‘free’ on the NHS. ‘NHS’ dentists do minimal treatment, and will go for taking teeth out rather than saving them, more £’s from NHS/public purse. If you need any specialist treatment, (ie, not an extraction or basic filling or sanding (‘cleaning’) your teeth to ruin your gums) good luck trying to get that on the NHS, even here in Scotland.
Afraid we have negative experience with dentists past few years, they don’t like patients who are entitled to all free NHS treatment but they have to treat you if you are on their books. They and their staff are less than friendly and in fact almost disdainful in our experience, but if you want to complain about anything you have to direct it at them! Hmm. No thanks.
Can’t abide dentists quite frankly.
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I go to an excellent NHS dental practice. I can choose which of the 12 dentists I want to do any treatment required. A check up is free, but they charge a quite outrageous £12 to clean my teeth (about 12 tubes of toothpaste that is !).
If your dentist is using sand paper you should have him/her arrested. My dentist uses a superior very fine emery paper which, while not ideal, is at least acceptable.
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Dental care is so much better. They used to just pull out teeth so people did not have enough to eat. People on benefits, children, pregnant women etc get teeth done. Others pay a minimum payment.
Dental clinic attached to the university for training. Training dentists. Brexit many dentists left.
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