DENTISTS have warned there could be a “wholescale exodus” of the profession from the NHS if ministers fail to make a “serious long-term commitment” to the sector.
Robert Donald, chair of the British Dental Association’s Scottish council, spoke after new figures showed an 8% fall in the number of NHS practitioners since the Covid pandemic.
Data covering the first eight months of 2022-23 reveals Scotland had 3155 dentists carrying out work on the NHS, compared to 3407 in 2019-20.
Dentists fear that without changes to the “high volume/low margin model” NHS dentistry is based on, more will leave the profession. Donald said:”The Scottish Government needs to make a serious long-term commitment to prevent a wholesale exodus from the NHS.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “A record number of people are registered with an NHS dentist, covering more than 95% of the population of Scotland, and across key treatments NHS dental services are at comparable levels of activity to levels last seen before pandemic restrictions were introduced.
“Dentistry is an important part of our NHS Recovery Plan. More than 1.5 million NHS examination appointments were completed between April and October, with an average of more than 300,000 courses of treatment per month, meaning we are on course for more than 3.5m contacts in the 2022/23 financial year.
“In total, the Scottish Government has provided over £150m to date in additional support to maintain the capacity and capability of the sector.”
