DT News - UK - Scottish public health minister describes dental treatment waiting time as unacceptable

Dental Tribune UK

Wed. 10 July 2019

save

EDINBURGH, UK: Scotland’s Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, Joe Fitzpatrick, has admitted that some dental patients are experiencing completely unacceptable waiting times for hospital treatment. New figures show that the number of patients waiting for longer than 12 weeks for treatment has risen dramatically over the past four years.

The data, which was released as a result of an information request from the British Dental Association (BDA), showed that NHS Grampian has five times as many patients waiting for longer than the 12-week target than it had had in 2015 and that NHS Highland has seen a tenfold increase in this number over the same period.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP, who raised this issue in the Scottish Parliament, said that patients can effectively expect to wait much longer and quoted figures which show a 14.7% drop in NHS dental staff in the last five years. In response, Fitzpatrick said, “I do accept that some of the waits that we know about—particularly some of the more challenging cases—are entirely unacceptable, particularly when you are talking about children who are often in pain.”

Commenting on the situation, BDA Scotland blamed consultant shortages as well as a failure of regular patient check-ups for the long waiting times being experienced by hospital dental patients. In a press release, the trade union pointed to statistics showing that the proportion of those registered with a dentist in Scotland who actually visit has fallen significantly over the last few years, from 76% in 2014 to below 70% in 2018.

Furthermore, BDA Scotland called on the Scottish government to ensure that the right investment and resources be put into dentistry in order for it to achieve the actions outlined in its Oral Health Improvement Plan, which was launched in early 2018. Of the 41 actions outlined in the plan, only two have been completed to date.

Tags:

To post a reply please login or register

NHS overhaul sparks fears for dental public health

LONDON, England: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to abolish National Health Service (NHS) England, aiming to integrate its functions ...

Scottish Dental Show to be held for the first time

GLASGOW, UK: On 24 and 25 May, the first Scottish Dental Show will be hosted in Glasgow’s Hampden Park. The organisers expect more than 1,000 dental ...

Jersey patients waiting years for orthodontic treatment

ST HELIER, Jersey: Patients on the island of Jersey are having to wait up to five years for orthodontic treatment, according to local newspaper the Jersey ...

Lengthy waiting times for dental patients in Scotland draw criticism

STIRLING, Scotland: Freedom of information requests by the Scottish Liberal Democrats have highlighted the extremely long waiting times for oral surgery ...

Study investigates television-based dental health promotion in waiting rooms

LONDON, UK: Rather than just sitting in the waiting room flipping through magazines, patients may be watching specially targeted health messages on the ...

Paediatric dentistry expert scoops Scottish Health Award

EDINBURGH, UK: Since its first publication in 1997, Paediatric Dentistry by Prof. Richard Welbury has become the standard textbook for all dentists working ...

Scottish dental patients receive HIV warning

GLASGOW/DUMFRIES, UK: Only a few days after the UK Department of Health announced that it will ease the ban on HIV-positive medical personnel, health ...

New Change4Life campaign launched by Public Health England

LONDON, UK: Public Health England (PHE) has launched a new Change4Life campaign to encourage parents to reduce their children’s sugar consumption and help...

Report shows oral health gap is closing for Scottish children

EDINBURGH, Scotland: Oral health in Scotland’s child population is generally improving, but the British Dental Association (BDA) Scotland has recently ...

Scottish professor wins international dental research award

DUNDEE, UK/VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada: In recognition of his prominence in the world of dental academia, Prof. Graham Ogden of the University of ...

Education

On-demand
webinar