DT News - UK - Dental clinic attendance gap between rich and poor increases in Scotland

Dental Tribune UK

Tue. 29 January 2019

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EDINBURGH, Scotland: Though a record proportion of the Scottish population have registered with an NHS dentist, statistics released by the NHS Scotland Information Services Division show that those living in the most deprived areas continue to be less likely to attend a dental check-up than those in the least deprived areas.

The released data showed that 94.2 per cent of the Scottish population were registered with an NHS dentist as of 30 September 2018, an increase of 1.7 per cent from the previous year. In further encouraging news, registration rates for children living in the most deprived areas of Scotland were similar to rates for those in the least deprived areas.

However, both children and adults from the most deprived areas were less likely to have seen their dentist at least once over the past two years than those in the least deprived areas. Overall, 3.6 million registered patients had seen an NHS dentist within the past two years.

Dental inequalities are a continued source of concern for Scotland. Figures released last year in the National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) 2018 showed that the average number of decayed, missing or filled primary teeth for children in the least deprived areas was 0.45 per child, compared with 1.92 for those from the poorest places.

“Year on year the Scottish government has attempted to hide behind positive-sounding registration numbers,” remarked Dr Robert Donald, Chair of the British Dental Association’s Scottish Council. “But these figures are based on ‘lifetime registration’, and nothing can conceal the gap that’s now opened between rich and poor when it comes to attendance.”

“The people missing out on appointments are precisely those we most need to see. Residents in Scotland’s most deprived communities are more than twice as likely to develop and die from oral cancer, and early detection is key,” he continued.

“We’ve had enough of official press releases boasting about how many patients are getting on to our books. The priority has to be a plan to get hard-to-reach patients into our chairs,” Donald emphasised.

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