Question Time — Scottish Executive — Health and Community Care – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:15 pm on 7 December 2006.
The national maximum waiting time for a first time out-patient appointment with a consultant following referral, including the specialty of orthodontics, is 26 weeks. All NHS boards are meeting that commitment. We intend to reduce the national maximum waiting time to 18 weeks from the end of 2007. I understand that in the year to 30 September, the median waiting time for a first out-patient appointment in orthodontics in the Highlands and Islands was 152 days.
The figures that the minister has given concern me and, I hope, many others.
Is the minister aware that, in October this year, the waiting lists for dental care in the Highlands and Islands reached more than 29,000 people and that although dentists in the region are eager to take on new patients it is nigh impossible to do so because of those tremendously long lists?
I do not accept that analysis. We would encourage dentists in the Highlands
I encourage dentists in the Highlands who have deregistered their fee-paying adult patients to revisit that decision in view of the greatly increased financial incentives for them to treat all categories of patient on the NHS. If they do that, they will help to reduce the waiting lists even more quickly.