Chamber and committees

That is a really good question. The first thing that came into my head on NHS dentistry, and NHS boards more widely, was that people can feed in their views on the Care Opinion website. To be honest, high street dentistry—if I may describe it as that—is very much constructed of individual businesses, as Tim McDonnell has just said. However, I encourage people to use Care Opinion if they want to give feedback on NHS dentistry.

That is a very wide question. As I have said previously, the changes in the fee structure and the regulations will maintain and ensure the sustainability of the service across Scotland.

On encouraging people into dentistry, one of the areas that we want to look at is the workforce. There have been two pretty big impacts on the dentistry workforce. One is from Brexit and the difficulty that it created in getting dentists from outwith the United Kingdom to come to the UK. I have written to all my counterparts and their chief dental officers in the four nations, and we are organising a meeting to talk about how we can improve the throughput if dentists wish to come to practise in the UK—and specifically Scotland, from our perspective.

We also want to look at improving the workforce within dentistry. For example, there are some very highly skilled dental technicians, and we would like to explore giving them a bigger locus in seeing patients. We are talking about the possibility of doing that. That is not a magic bullet that will solve our issues, so we are working together on a lot of things. That is why the connections and discussions that we have with dentists, as Tim McDonnell and Tom Ferris have highlighted, are so important, whether they are through the BDA more widely or through the NHS directors of dentistry.

The problem is that there is not an “average patient”. Everyone in Scotland comes as an individual to see their NHS dentist.

The letters that I have been getting—I am sure that you are the same as me, in this regard—are about access to service. That is what people are really pushing for: they want to ensure that we improve access to NHS dentistry. As I said earlier, what we aim to achieve through the changes in regulations and fee structures is sustainability of services.

The intention of the reforms is to ensure that we continue to make NHS dentistry attractive to dentists.

As I have said on a number of occasions, we believe that this is the right reform, building on the foundations of the way that dentistry is funded and provided in Scotland.

It is also incredibly important that we continue the dialogue with our dentists to ensure that we are getting the right changes made, whether they relate to governance, workforce or access, which are all important.

I know that Tim McDonnell wants to make some comments about access.

We have been very clear about that since we started discussions a number of months ago with the British Dental Association and, more widely, with dentists in Scotland. That work will start once the system is bedded in. We have already started with some very well-attended webinars to ensure that dentists understand what the changes are and how they will implement them in their practice.

We will constantly keep review of the system in mind. Tom Ferris meets dentists and directors of dentistry regularly through national health service boards and the BDA. We have been very clear with the BDA that we want to work with it to ensure that this is the right start for the reforms that we are looking at.

That is my hope.

Thank you for that question. The frequency of check-ups has been commented on in the media. The yearly review is in-depth and follows the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

However, it is really important for everyone to understand that it is for the dentist to make the decision based on the patient. In response to Dr Gulhane, I referenced the fact that there is not an “average patient”. It is important to recognise that if your dentist feels that you need to be seen more regularly, he or she can choose that.

I was disappointed to be told by my dentist that I had to come back in six months, because I thought that I was looking after my teeth’s health pretty well and was hoping for a check-up in nine months. However, the approach is really focused on the patient. That is what the regulations give us the opportunity to do.

I am sure, Mr Sweeney, that if you were to reflect on that and were being seen by another area of the health service and were told that you did not need to come back in six months but in nine months, you would see that as good news. We need to remember that the frequency of check-ups is based on the patient and the clinical expertise of the dentist.

Thank you for that question. As you will have seen in the BDA’s response to the committee’s letter on the regulations, it said that that approach is actually something that it had been looking for. It feels that managing patients’ oral health is doing things at the right level because we all have a degree of responsibility for looking after our health.

I take on board the point about access; I underline, yet again, that we are seeking to improve access through the payment reforms that we will put in place next week.

I heard from people who live with long Covid that there needs to be more public awareness of the conditions that they live with. I heard from one gentleman in his early 70s who had been fit and used to go out walking a lot. It now takes him more than half an hour to walk half a mile.

There is a need for better knowledge on the part of the wider public about the impacts of long Covid. I was pleased that I had officials with me on that visit and will have them with me in my meetings next week and the following week. That means that they have heard about that need, and I am speaking to them about how we can improve awareness of long Covid in the population.