Dental Patients Can Wait Up To Three Years In Scotland
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- Published: Thursday, 26 January 2023 07:39
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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Pick up any newspaper, turn on any radio or television news channel, and the lengthening NHS waiting lists are never more than a news item away.
Scottish Liberal Democrats, using a freedom of information request, have exposed figures that reveal some dental patients have been waiting up to three years to receive the treatment they need.
According to a report in The Herald - Scotland’s most established newspaper - “one patient from NHS Borders who underwent an inpatient or day case dental procedure in 2022 had been on the waiting list for 146 weeks - around two years and 10 months - by the time their treatment took place.
This compared to a longest wait of 67 weeks in 2019, recorded in the NHS Tayside region.
For specialist dental treatment at an outpatient clinic, NHS Lothian had recorded the longest single waiting time in 2022 with one patient treated in region after spending 169 weeks - roughly three years and four months - on a waiting list”.
Many patients on the waiting list were awaiting oral and maxillofacial surgery including wisdom tooth extraction, orthognathic procedures and, in the case of children, extractions under general anaesthetic.
The report continued “at least 11 health boards treated patients in 2022 who had been waiting over a year for inpatient/day case procedures compared to only three in 2019.
In NHS Lanarkshire, where the average waiting time for inpatient or day case treatment through the Public Dental Service was 41 weeks last year compared to four weeks in 2019.
Not surprisingly, publication of the figures ignited a political ding-dong with Scottish LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton accusing the NHS of “abandoning NHS dentistry”.
“These figures show that over the past four years, long waits have soared,” he said. “Scots are being left in pain.”
This analysis was denied by a Scottish Government spokeswoman who said that patients were not being left in pain because all hospitals triage patients to ensure that those experiencing painful conditions get the treatment they need as a priority.
"Dentistry is an important part of our recovery plan and we’re working with boards to address the backlog created by the pandemic, both in dental practices and hospitals” the spokeswoman said.
Unlike in England, NHS patients in Scotland are ‘registered’ with a dental practice and this registration covers 95% of the population. However, BDA figures suggest that 80% of NHS practices in Scotland are not accepting new patient registrations
There are more dentists per head of the population in Scotland than in England – 59 NHS dentists per 100,000 of the population compared with 43 per 100,000 in England.
Patients who are not registered with a dentist can seek emergency treatment at university dental schools. These also provide regular care on an appointment basis.
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