The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 772 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
I think that what we are looking at is a prevention-centred dental care service. The childsmile programme that we have rolled out to improve the oral health of young children is not disease-centred; it is very much centred on prevention.
We have also been very clear—again—about sustainability of services and ability to access dental services, which I think are really important.
The change that we are making with regard to unregistered patients is also important, because it moves us into the preventative space. When we bring all the regulations together, they show that we want to ensure that there is sustainable access to NHS dental services for the people of Scotland.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
Yes, I can. I am aware of that issue from my conversations with the BDA.
In Scotland, we have a blended method. It combines a capitation payment for the number of people who are seen by a practice—one of the changes that will be made by the regulations is that adults and children will now be treated for the same fee, which, I think, is positive—and a payment for the services that a dentist provides. I think that that method will work very well, given the variety of dental organisations and businesses that we have.
In fact, yesterday Tom Ferris met some of the academics whom I referenced in my letter of 18 October, who are very supportive of a combined method of paying for our NHS dentistry and think that that is the right way. We have been very clear that we are building on a foundation that we already have in Scotland that works very well and on which practices are already built. I think that the reformed blended system is the right way for us to move forward. In that meeting, Tom Ferris discussed the possibility of making changes in Scotland. The advice that we got from academics from North America, Europe and Australia was that, if we look at how dentists’ services work across the world, we see that a simple lift and shift would not necessarily provide a better service. Their strong view was that we should modernise a system that is already working, which is what the Scottish Government has endeavoured to do, through the changes that we are making with the regulations and payment reform.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
We have been aware of that in planning for the change, which will happen next week. As I said earlier, my officials have held a number of webinars with dentists to explain the new regulations and way of working. I understand that they have been extremely well appreciated and well attended. I think that there were about 1,000 people at the first webinar meeting, which was oversubscribed. As a result, another one is being held tomorrow evening to ensure that dentists are across the subject. We are also doing webinars on specific subjects, including periodontistry, to ensure that the reform is widely known about across the profession. Feedback has been incredibly positive.
I thank my officials for the work that they have put into that engagement, because I appreciate how important it is that the professionals absolutely understand the changes that we are making.
09:30On public messaging, you are absolutely right. In fact, I walked past a dental surgery in Glasgow the other day and thought, “Oh my goodness, they’ve got their poster out early”, but it was a different poster. We are doing a variety of public engagement and messaging, including posters in dental practices, libraries and so on, as well as a multimedia campaign, so the information will be on the radio and other media outlets. I hope that we have everything covered, but we will evaluate that as we go.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
As I said, we have made it very clear that we will have continual discussions with the BDA about the payment reform that we have introduced.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
If you do not mind, I will pass that question to Tom Ferris.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
That is a really important question to ask. Broadly speaking, we intend to maintain access to NHS dentistry across Scotland through the reforms. I will hand over to Tom Ferris.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
We should remember that everybody under 26 gets free dentistry and, as I have said, between 20 and 25 per cent of adults do not pay for their NHS dentistry. What we had to do was look at the best way of ensuring that we sustained the number of dentists and dental practices in Scotland, and it was felt that a slight increase in the fees was the right move. The fees are still capped at £384.
As I think I mentioned earlier, the concern that I have been hearing with regard to dentistry is about access. That is the issue that we believe the changes and amendments in the regulations will help us to address.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
Most definitely. The cost of living issue floods through every decision that we make just now, so it is absolutely something that we will be keeping an eye on.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
The Government supports people on low incomes in a number of ways. I think that between 20 and 25 per cent of adults in Scotland do not have to pay for their NHS treatment. The fact that we have free examinations is important as well.
Earlier, I highlighted other initiatives, such as childsmile for getting younger children into the habit of cleaning their teeth, which have been incredibly helpful. Statistics that came out today show that 82 per cent of primary 7 schoolchildren have no obvious tooth decay. That high level backs up the investment that we have put into the preventative side of oral healthcare for children.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Jenni Minto
The nub of the reforms is about ensuring that we sustain NHS dentistry in the long term. Like you, I have received lots of emails about the access that people have to dentistry. We have the reforms, but we also need to remember that the Scottish Government has put other grants in place. For example, the Scottish dental access initiative offers £100,000 for a new practice in an area. We have been in discussions with health boards to ensure that we target those grants in the right areas. We also have some remote—although I do not like using that term—grant payments, which are really important.
The conversations that Tom Ferris and I have with the health boards are also important, because the boards have a responsibility to look at how dental services are being provided in their jurisdictions. I was pleased to hear that Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway and Highland are now working together to encourage more dentists to come to areas that have had recruitment issues. As I said to David Torrance, we also need to keep an eye on the breadth of skills in dental surgeries to ensure that they are supported.