Following the Association of Dental Group’s (ADG’s) first roundtable meeting of its new Scotland branch in February 2023 in Edinburgh, the trade body has launched its Scottish ‘Six to fix’ policy proposals to narrow oral health inequalities in Scotland and create a more sustainable workforce in NHS dentistry.
The ‘Six to fix’ mirrors the ADG’s approach in England, where proposals have been taken up by policy makers to improve the delivery of NHS dental services.
The Scottish ‘Six to fix’ includes:
1. Increase the number of training places in Scotland
The ADG is urging the government to create a new dentist recruitment campaign backed by a target to increase the number of training places within Scotland. Postgraduate training places need to be better aligned with areas with the highest oral health inequalities. It believes this will start to help improve the medium to long-term picture.
2. Recognition of EU-trained dentists
The trade body wants continued access to UK dentistry for EU-trained professionals, who made up 29.5 per cent of new GDC registrants in 2021.
3. Recognition of overseas qualifications
The ADG is encouraging the government to make much more of our links to Commonwealth countries. Before 2001, the UK had bilateral agreements with Commonwealth dental schools including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa whose qualifications met UK standards. The association says potential agreements should be explored again.
4. More flexibility for dentists to work across multiple practices in Scotland
In Scotland, to see NHS patients a dentist needs to hold a list number at a particular practice. To see NHS patients at another practice, another list number is needed. The listing process can take up to three months and needs to be reformed. Allowing dentists the flexibility to provide NHS care at neighbouring practices would make better use of the workforce and help improve access to NHS care, particularly in the more remote and rural “dental deserts.”
5. Promote prevention
Scotland has much to be proud of in relation to oral health improvement measures – in particular, the “ChildSmile” programme, however they were badly hit by the pandemic period. A continued commitment to funding these programmes by all political parties in Scotland is a crucial part of fighting oral health inequalities.
6. Reform the NHS dental contract
The Scottish National Party has promised to abolish all NHS dental patient charges over the lifetime of the current Parliament and “shape a reformed funding arrangement for NHS dentists, so that they are supported for the future.” The ADG welcomes the ambition for a more administratively simpler and more clinically focused system which needs to come out of the current reform process to ensure a sustainable future for NHS dentistry which attracts and retains NHS dentists in Scotland.
Neil Carmichael, chair of the ADG, said, “The latest statistics are a stark warning of the growing oral health inequalities in Scotland. Barely half of all “registered” patients have seen an NHS dentist in the two years to September 2022. Of even more concern, children and adults from the most deprived areas were much less likely to have seen a dentist in the past two years – by a margin for children of 55.9 per cent compared to 75.8 per cent - the highest reported difference.”
“Access cannot improve without building the workforce – since 2019 the number of dentists providing NHS care in Scotland has fallen 10 per cent. Our own members have found that recruitment difficulties mean parts of Scotland are becoming “dental deserts,” with more deprived or rural areas having fewer NHS dentists than those in more affluent areas.”