by BILL HEANEY
Scottish Labour has raised the alarm as new figures show one in four NHS dentistry patients have gone more than five years without an appointment.
Information obtained by a Freedom of Information request has shown that a quarter of the Scots registered with an NHS dentist haven’t been to a surgery in the last five years – a staggering 1.3 million patients.
This includes an appalling 65,915 people under the age of 18.
This is in addition to the 270,000 patients not registered with an NHS dentist at all.
Scottish Labour has criticised the lack of ideas on dentistry in the Programme for Government in light of these figures.
“NHS dentistry is at breaking point, and too many Scots are at risk of falling through the gaps – including thousands of children.
“John Swinney’s Programme for Government was an opportunity to set out new ideas to fix these serious problems, but it failed to deliver.
“The Scottish government must wake up to the growing dentistry crisis taking hold in Scotland and make sure that people in every part of the country can easily access affordable NHS dentistry.”
- 1,339,795 (25.4%) of patients of all ages registered with an NHS dentist have not participated within 5 years.
- 65,915 (7.2%) patients under the age of 18 registered with an NHS dentist have not participated within 5 years.
- 270,307 (4.9%) people of all ages were not registered with an NHS dentist.
Source: FOI response from Public Health Scotland.