National Health Service Dentistry

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament am ar 21 Chwefror 2024.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Jenni Minto Jenni Minto Scottish National Party

I would like to continue.

I am working on that plan with my officials and with directors of dentistry across NHS health boards.

As the cabinet secretary and others have highlighted, the necessary interruption in the training of undergraduate and newly qualified dentists during the pandemic had a significant impact on the introduction of home-grown talent into the sector. We are working on that. Training has now resumed. In August 2023, we had about 160 vocational trainees, and we anticipate having about 170 from August 2024.

Sue Webber made a point about frequent dental examinations. We have not reduced the number of dental examinations; we have followed the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, which will allow dentists to have better conversations with people with poorer oral health, who will potentially be seen more often than they would have been under previous arrangements. That is incredibly important as part of dentists’ key work on prevention.

Before Brexit, around one in 10 dentists working in Scotland was from the EU. In some rural board areas, the percentage was much higher. As a result, I personally initiated and led discussions on exploring ways in which we could improve the registration process for international dentists across the four UK nations, as regulation of health professionals is a reserved function. I welcome the outcome of that meeting with my counterparts, as I do the consultation that the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care published last week, to consider provisional registration of international dentists by the General Dental Council. I clarify that the Scottish Government will work alongside health boards and NHS Education for Scotland to design any required regulations and framework to support international dentists who come to practise in Scotland, so that they can safely follow that journey. That is incredibly important.

In addition to the full resumption of Scottish training programmes and improvements in overseas pipelines, the Scottish Government is clear that further short-term actions are required to boost the available dental workforce. I have met the directors of dentistry in the health boards to discuss those matters. We are actively considering whether we can better utilise our highly skilled dental therapists to provide dental care without the assistance of dentists, as is currently required. I am pleased to say that a short-life working group, comprising NHS dentists and dental care professionals, working alongside officials, has been convened to make recommendations on the best way to implement such a system.

I thank Fergus Ewing for his comments, although, to be honest, I was waiting for him to add a “but”. In the vein of Mr Ewing’s suggestion, I offer to hold a round-table meeting with members who have taken part in the debate.

I want to be clear that the Scottish Government continues to work closely with NHS boards to support them in identifying tailored solutions to local access problems. For example, the Scottish dental access initiative provides grants of up to £100,000 for opening a new practice or extending an existing one in a health board area. We also offer golden hello payments of up to £37,500 for new trainee dentists practising in such an area. I note that the UK Government has just announced a similar idea for England. In the meantime, I have been assured that unregistered patients will continue to be able to access emergency and urgent dental care via public dental service clinics.

Childsmile, which Paul Sweeney mentioned, does great and important work. This year’s statistics showed that, in October 2023, 82 per cent of primary 7 children had no obvious decay, compared with 53 per cent in 2005. That shows that a policy that was introduced by a Labour Government, but which has been continued, invested in and expanded by the current SNP Government, is a real success story.