By Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian today: Plans to end NHS dental care crisis not working, warns spending watchdog – National Audit Office finds ‘significant uncertainty’ as to whether pledge for extra 1.5m treatments will be fulfilled. Plans to end the deepening crisis in access to NHS dental care are failing, leaving patients unable to get treatment, according to a warning from the government’s spending watchdog. The National Audit Office’s (NAO) damning verdict on the “dental recovery plan” prompted patient groups to voice alarm that people’s struggles with decayed teeth represents “a serious public health concern”. A pledge to provide an extra 1.5m treatments … Continue reading Anas Sarwar will need to mask UK Labour’s ‘deepening failure’ to improve access to dentistry in England if Scots are not to just laugh in the teeth of Scottish Labour’s 2026 campaign

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

By Professor John Robertson Given a free campaign platform with no professional journalism in sight, Anas Sarwar is allowed by STV to claim Scotland faces a two-tier dentistry system, because: It comes after figures at the end of last year showed a drop in the number of people being seen by NHS dentists. Data from Public Health Scotland revealed that in December 2023 there were 245,501 patients who were seen or had contact with an NHS dentist, down from 396,084 the previous month. The number of dental treatments carried out on the NHS fell from 733,596 to 542,897 in the … Continue reading STV allow Sarwar to misuse basic statistics to lie about the best dentistry in Britain AND ignore Christmas!

Alex Cole Hamilton – leader of the 5th biggest party gets another platform to misleadingly attack the SNP. Tonight, he even claims, and STV don’t challenge it, that declines in dentists doing NHS treatment is leading to people buying tools on Amazon to do dentistry themselves. So, first, the availability of dentistry in Scotland: 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 Meanwhile in England: Thousands of children … Continue reading Listening to Alex Cole Hamilton is like pulling your own teeth