NHS Dental Services (Dumfries and Galloway)

General Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 5 December 2024.

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Photo of Colin Smyth Colin Smyth Labour

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to Public Health Scotland’s recent national health service dental monitoring report, which indicates that almost 40 per cent of adults in Dumfries and Galloway are not registered with an NHS dentist. (S6O-04076)

Photo of Jenni Minto Jenni Minto Scottish National Party

The Scottish Government has made available tailored grant funding, and NHS Dumfries and Galloway recently held a successful Scottish dental access initiative application, which will result in 2,000 new NHS registrations in Moffat. We are also funding dental emergency evening clinics for unregistered patients, which have been in operation for almost 18 months.

Officials are working closely with the board to ensure that measures are in place for appropriate staffing of the Gardenhill practice in Castle Douglas to support the provision of emergency and urgent care to unregistered patients and to provide routine dental care to a number of registered patients in priority groups.

Photo of Colin Smyth Colin Smyth Labour

It is not just about adults; more than 20 per cent of children in Dumfries and Galloway are not registered with an NHS dentist, which are the worst figures in Scotland. The actions that the minister has outlined are clearly not working, because the problem has been getting worse. Why is the crisis so bad in Dumfries and Galloway? Why is the action not making a difference? More important, what more will the Government do to tackle the crisis, before NHS dentistry becomes a thing of the past for far too many of my constituents?

Photo of Jenni Minto Jenni Minto Scottish National Party

Colin Smyth will recognise that, prior to Brexit, a large proportion of the dentists in Dumfries and Galloway and in other rural areas of Scotland came from European countries. I recently met the Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock, as well as my counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland, to talk specifically about how we can improve the recruitment of dentists in the United Kingdom—this is an issue not just in Scotland.

Colin Smyth will be pleased to recognise the important investment in dentistry that the Scottish Government has put into the budget for next year. I suggest that he supports the Scottish budget, so that we can continue the improvement.