NHS dental spending in Scotland is down
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- Published: Tuesday, 28 November 2017 07:46
- Written by News Editor
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Scotland's health service running costs were £11.7 billion last year, up by almost £900million in real terms since 2012/13 thanks to big increases in staffing and drugs expenditure, according to the latest NHS figures. However seven areas, including dentistry, saw their funding decrease.
The seven areas seeing their funding decrease were dental services, laundry, catering, property maintenance, teaching and research, administration and energy and utilities. Spending on general dental services fell from £418m to £409.7m over the five years, despite an additional 658,000 dental registrations across the country. Last year, the BDA said Scottish dentists were the worst paid in the UK after a long campaign of ‘savage cuts’ to the sector.
Robert Donald, chair of the British Dental Association's Scottish dental practice committee said the profession has "certainly felt the squeeze". He added: “Doing more with less funding is unsustainable to tackle the rise in oral cancers, close the inequalities gap that still exists between children with the best and worst oral health, or improve the dental provision for vulnerable patients in care homes.
“As it stands, NHS dentists have seen their incomes fall by 35% over the past decade, at the same time that expenses are rising rapidly. This collapse in income hinders our ability to deliver improvements in facilities, equipment, and training our patients deserve as the vast majority of NHS dentists have to fund these from their own pockets. Taking such a large hit inevitably has a knock on effect on dentists’ ability to care for the nation’s oral health.”
Don't worry
Relax fellow Scottish dentists. At least we don't have UDAs and we will be getting our share of the £350million a week any day now.You need to be logged in to leave comments.
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