Cole-Hamilton: More than a quarter of children go without dental check-up for two years

After new research by his party found that more than a quarter of children registered with an NHS dentist haven't had a dental check-up in the last two years, Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today urged the government to stop spinning the statistics and get on with fixing the problems.

In response to the efforts of Scottish Liberal Democrats and others to help patients trying in vain to get treatment, Scottish ministers, including Humza Yousaf, have regularly noted that 95% of people are registered with a dentist.

However, a freedom of information request from the Scottish Liberal Democrats found that of the 897,926 children and young people (under 18s) registered with an NHS dentist:  

• More than a quarter haven’t had a checkup in the past 2 years.  
• Almost 80,000 (9% of the children registered) haven’t been seen by an NHS dentist in the last 5 years.
• 20,783  haven’t been seen in the last 10 years.  

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:  

“While the SNP continue serving up their great dentistry distortion, children and young people are struggling to access the toothcare they need.

"It's vital that we support good oral health from a young age, enable problems to be caught early and ensure the healthy development of mouth and teeth. It seems, however, that this SNP Government would rather hide behind a statistic that mispresents the situation, stalls action on key problems and fails hundreds of thousands of children and young people.

“Scottish Liberal Democrats have set out plans which would deliver quality, accessible dentistry in every community. To save NHS dentistry, we would reform the funding structures to enable more NHS patients to be seen and rewrite the NHS Recovery Plan to include a comprehensive plan for dentists.

“Fundamentally, my party is on the side of all those parents, children and young people who are queuing for a dentist and fed-up with endless SNP spin.”