Children and young people waiting almost three years for dental treatment

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today accused the SNP/Green Government of abandoning NHS dentistry after new research from his party found that children and young people in some parts of the country are waiting almost three years to receive NHS dental treatment.  

Liberal Democrats submitted a series of freedom of information requests to all of Scotland’s health boards asking for data on the longest and average waiting times for dental patients under the age of 18.    

Of the 13 health boards which provided the data, the party found that:    

• During 2023, outpatients and inpatients under the age of 18 in the Borders were amongst those waiting the longest for treatment, with an inpatient waiting almost three years (1,078 days) and an outpatient waiting more than two years (903 days).    
• During 2023, in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, one inpatient under 18 waited more than two years for treatment (811 days), while an outpatient waited almost two years (772 days).    
• The health board with the longest average waits for outpatients under 18 was NHS Ayrshire & Arran (259 days), followed by NHS Lanarkshire (231 days).  
• The health board with the longest average waits for inpatients under 18 was NHS Borders (419 days), followed by Lanarkshire (266 days).  
• Since 2019, the longest an outpatient under 18 has had to wait for treatment has more than tripled in the Borders, Ayrshire & Arran, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Western Isles, Lanarkshire and Orkney, while it has more than doubled in Dumfries and Galloway.    
• Since 2019, the longest an inpatient under 18 has had to wait for treatment in Lothian has increased by more than fivefold, shooting up from 12 weeks to 65 weeks.    
• Since 2019, average waiting times for outpatients under 18 have increased across 8 health boards, while average waiting times for inpatients under 18 have increased across 9 health boards.  

This week, the Scottish Government introduced a revised payment system for NHS dental treatments, which will see an increase in the prices for patients. The cost to a patient of a single tooth extraction will rise from £14.76 to £28.84. The cost of a basic acrylic denture will jump from £70 to £117.    

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:     

“By abandoning NHS dentistry, the Scottish Government has left children and young people languishing in pain.    

“Children and young people need excellent access to dental treatment because establishing good oral health can benefit them for a lifetime. Unfortunately, sky-high waits like these show that the government is completely failing to ensure that provision is available.  

“With the cost of dental charges having now shot up, people are paying more for less under the SNP.  

“We can’t continue down this rotten path any longer. To bring down waits and get people seen quickly, the Scottish Government must rewrite the failing NHS Recovery Plan to prioritise workforce planning and boost the number of dentists taking on NHS patients.”