Dental Service Re-design A Further Move Towards A Poorer Health Service

26th February 2015

Highlands and Islands Scottish Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant has written to the Scottish Government asking why they are demanding that dental patients in the Highlands transfer from NHS dentists to private practitioners.

"The Scottish Government claim that there is too high a proportion of patients in the NHS Highland registered with dentists employed by the NHS," said Mrs Grant.

"The reason for this is obvious," Mrs Grant continued, "with so many rural and remote communities, it is difficult to find private dentists to register with. The same is true of other, largely rural, NHS areas like NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles.

“The Scottish Government is clearly not happy with paying for proper dental care in rural and remote Scotland, so it is demanding that NHS Highland force patients to transfer to private dental practices.

“The current system ensures a dental service across the whole of the NHS Highland area and responds to the needs of the whole population. A system dependent on private practitioners will be market led and lead to huge areas devoid of a dental service.

“I have written to the Scottish Government asking that they abandon this initiative," concluded Mrs Grant. “It is entirely led by a wish to cut costs by promoting private dental health care. All this is to be achieved at the cost of a further reduction in the quality of healthcare in rural and remote Scotland.”