BDA Response To Funding For Dental Facilities In Scotland

Main Category: Dentistry
Article Date: 20 Jan 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Investment in dental facilities across Scotland announced today by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon is not the sole solution for Scotland's lost dental patients. That's the verdict of the British Dental Association (BDA). The investment, which arises from an announcement made in August 2008, is to be spread across Scotland, with each of the 14 health boards seeing monies injected into the provision of dental services.

Andrew Lamb, BDA Director for Scotland, said:
"Today's news provides recognition from the Scottish Government of the significant problems that people in many areas face gaining access to NHS dentistry. For some of those people this investment will be good news, providing facilities for NHS dentistry where it wasn't previously available. The new premises will provide high quality environments for the practice of dentistry and that is to be applauded. However, there has been an ongoing problem of finding dentists to work in remote and rural sites and more will need to be done to address this.

"A significant number of people across Scotland will, unfortunately, continue to be without access to a dentist. Today's announcement is just one step in finding a solution to this problem. The Scottish Government must also pay careful attention to the needs of the many independent dentists who will not be working in the new dental centres. It was promised that some of this funding would be deployed to help high street dentists adapt to changing decontamination regulations and it is important that they are properly supported as they do this and continue to provide high quality care to the large numbers of patients they see."

1. Details of today's announcement can be accessed here.

2. The British Dental Association (BDA) is the professional association for dentists in the UK. It represents 23,000 dentists working in general practice, in community and hospital settings, in academia and research, and in the armed forces, and includes dental students.

John Hilsdon
Head of Public Affairs
British Dental Association
http://www.bda.org

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