The above follows immediately the British Dental Association‘s claim that ‘across the whole UK, the dentists union says it’s become much more difficult for people to access affordable care.‘

The report had opened with ‘the British Dental Association says the Government risks failing to deliver on its promise to save NHS dentistry in England. Labour has pledged to reform the struggling service in this parliament.’

Dentistry is not an issue, it seems, for the media operating in Scotland.

Here’s why:

Twice as many have NHS dental care in Scotland, hundreds queue for care in England but the Herald lets the British dentists’ trade union and the least trusted pollster YouGov tell us we have a problem as a failed dentist faces a near extinction event for his party

In March 2026:

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.

Source: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-dental-data-monitoring-report/nhs-dental-data-monitoring-report-quarter-ending-september-2025/

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….

Are Scots aware of this? They are. See, also in March 2026:

Many thanks to NHS FOR YES! for alerting me to this.

Today in the Guardian:

Public satisfaction with the NHS has risen for the first time since 2019, but people remain deeply frustrated with stubbornly long waits to receive GP, A&E or hospital care. The proportion of voters in Britain satisfied with the way the NHS runs has increased from the record low of 21% seen last year to 26%. At the same time dissatisfaction with the health service fell 8% – the biggest drop since 1998 – although it remains high at 51%.

Wes Streeting hailed the findings as proof that the NHS, which he said was “broken” when Labour won power in July 2024, was now “on the road to recovery”. The health secretary will cite them as evidence of progress in a speech on Wednesday in which he will set out plans to improve care at five badly performing health trusts. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/25/public-satisfaction-with-nhs-rises-wes-streeting

There’s no 4 nations breakdown in the Guardian report, reasons below, and if there was, I suspect Wes might need to be careful using it, but it is in the full Nuffield Trust report:

A significantly lower proportion of people in Wales (18%) were satisfied with the NHS than the survey average. This remained statistically significant when controlling for other factors. People in Scotland (33%) were significantly more satisfied than people in Wales, but not compared to people in England (26%).

NHS Scotland satisfying 25% more (33 is 25% greater than 26) and:

While there were no significant differences between the age groups, analysis reveals that Scottish respondents are significantly more satisfied (40%) with NHS dentistry than both English (21%) and Welsh (14%) respondents. Scottish respondents were more satisfied than dissatisfied with NHS dentistry, in sharp contrast to English and Welsh respondents who were significantly more dissatisfied than satisfied.

NHS Scotland A&E and dentistry satisfying TWICE as many, and:

Scottish respondents were significantly more satisfied (40%) with A&E services than English (21%) and Welsh (14%) respondents.

Source: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/research/public-satisfaction-with-the-nhs-and-social-care-in-2025-results-from-the-british-social-attitudes-survey

There’s no BBC Scotland coverage of the above, of course.