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Yes, of course the Scottish Government is aware of that. The comments from Tom Ferris and Tim McDonnell underline the breadth of the work that we are doing in primary care dentistry in Scotland. There are some very good examples of areas of inequality being served by health boards.

Health boards know their areas very closely. For example, the Tayside dental bus specifically goes into areas of deprivation, and I am pleased that that service was recognised at the NHS Scotland awards last month. We also have a public dentistry service in Edinburgh that holds certain clinics in more deprived areas, in recognition that not everyone can go to Chalmers Street. That is important.

I underline the work that we are doing on prevention. We continue to invest in childsmile to support children. If we teach children, that goes to parents, too. Specific funding has also been directed to people in care homes, people with drug addiction and members of ethnic minorities, which supports them on the preventative side of healthcare. That is very important, and it is a key investment in Scotland’s dental services that ensures that we work towards everybody in Scotland having better oral health.

I will give an overview, and I will then pass to Tom Ferris.

As I indicated earlier, each health board is responsible for looking at dental support within its footprint. Each health board has a director of dentistry, and we rely on them to have conversations with the Scottish Government regarding areas that they believe need SDAI funding. We have been working very closely with directors of dentistry, and we have listened to a lot of comments from your colleagues at the two dental round-table meetings that we held earlier this year. We are considering how we can focus more on where the SDAI grants are available.

Public Health Scotland gathers the data for the Scottish Government, as you well know. When I was at its annual review, alongside Paul Kelly from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—we co-chair the annual review with COSLA—we were shown a tool that is pulling in data from an education perspective and from a health perspective. It has been piloted in a few schools over the past year or so. One school recognised that there was an issue with oral health; as a result of the pilot, it was able to focus on that. That is the kind of information that we are getting.

However, the information is only as good as the decisions that come out of it. That pilot is a good example of where data is being gathered from two different sources—education and health boards—and acted on to improve people’s health. We need to focus on that.

It is important to recognise that secondary school children have access to free dental health care. One of the conversations that I have quite regularly with Tom Ferris is about the number of adverts on telly for toothbrushes and toothpaste. There is an important point to be made about ensuring that people of all ages are aware of their oral health. I am happy to take that point away and have a conversation with my colleagues in education about how that fits in.

The database from Public Health Scotland that I have just described has the potential to result in improvements. The example that I gave was in a primary school, but I imagine that secondary school teachers would recognise the importance of bringing in education on oral health for older children. That is an important point.

Thank you, convener. I will simply move the motions and propose that the committee recommends that the regulations be approved.

Motions moved,

That the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee recommends that the Burial (Management) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.

That the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee recommends that the Burial and Cremation (Inspection) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 [draft] be approved.—[Jenni Minto]

Motions agreed to.

I recognise that things have changed dramatically since 2017-18, when the oral health improvement plan was set in motion. The important thing to note is that that was very much an evidence-based piece of work to understand exactly what was needed. There were a number of recommendations, and many elements of them have been delivered through the payment reform.

As Tom Ferris has discussed, there has been a focus on preventative care. We also note the importance of continuing to provide the full range of treatment. In the payment reform, we have reduced the number of categories that people can claim against, but there is still the full range of treatments. I believe that the evidence that we have given so far is that payment reform is the foundation or underpinning of the other developments that we must make, both in reform and in investment.

There has been a range of governance proposals regarding NHS boards. In including the directors of dentistry, we have been cognisant of that. We have also been monitoring clinical quality, which is very important. We work with Healthcare Improvement Scotland on that.

We are still considering the use of the dental team and where it is right to fit that. The oral health improvement plan underpins the work that we continue to do on workforce, which we view as the key focus. There is also the matter of governance of dental practices.

You asked whether we should review the oral health improvement plan. I do not believe that now is the right time to do that. We have done a lot of work to stabilise dental services, and we need to keep the focus on that. I have been speaking to my officials about workforce, and that is where we need to focus our efforts to ensure that we get the right number of dentists, dental therapists and hygienists in Scotland and that we can give them the right training. That is where we should be focusing, rather than going back to the sector at this point.

That is still our intention, but, given the current financial climate, we have been focusing on ensuring that we can stabilise dentistry in Scotland and that we have the right workforce. That commitment is still our intention.

As I highlighted, we have allocated £0.5 billion to dentistry in the 2025-26 budget, which is a 33 per cent increase during this session of Parliament. If the Scottish Government had simply allocated Barnett consequentials, the amount would have been about £300 million, which would have left a shortfall. That emphasises the importance that we put on investing in dental health in Scotland.

I apologise for the slight delay in my arrival, and I thank the committee for shifting your agenda to accommodate that.

Thank you for the opportunity to return to the committee to provide an update on NHS dental services. When we last met, the Scottish Government was preparing for the introduction of significant reforms to the NHS dental payment system. I am pleased to confirm that that reform was successfully delivered, as planned, on 1 November 2023, with the introduction of a realistic package of fees for NHS dentists to better reflect the market cost of providing NHS services. The draft budget, which was announced last week, reinforces our commitment to the sector, with a 15 per cent increase in funding for primary care dental services planned for 2025-26.

The reforms have also introduced a number of clinical benefits for dentists and patients alike. The system is now more focused on preventative care, reflecting modern dentistry, and offers more clinical discretion to practitioners in a less bureaucratic environment, although I recognise that we could make further progress on that.

The primary aim of reform was to incentivise dentists to provide more NHS care and, in turn, to support patient access. One year on, the latest official statistics show that almost 4 million courses of treatment were delivered to patients between the introduction of the reforms and the end of September 2024. That demonstrates that the sector has been sustained and that high volumes of patient access are being delivered in the new system. It also reflects the conversations that my officials and I have had with dental stakeholders, who have reported a largely positive response to reform. However, I am acutely aware that localised access issues remain, and I am clear that payment reform is only the first step in ensuring the sustainability of NHS dental services.

We continue to make a range of additional financial support available to the more challenging areas of Scotland, while actively considering the long-term actions that are required to improve patient access, including those on workforce and governance. I stress that there are a number of complexities involved in addressing recruitment and access challenges. The issues that we face are not Scotland specific, and there is no short-term solution. However, I recently met the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and my counterpart in Wales to discuss the actions that are required to improve international recruitment pipelines, and I look forward to working with my colleagues across the UK to find solutions.

In line with our programme for government commitment, we will continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders across the sector to monitor the impact of reform over the remainder of this parliamentary session to ensure sustained and improved access to NHS dentistry for the people of Scotland.

We have worked closely with Public Health Scotland to ensure that we have robust methods for knowing how many people are getting dental treatment. It is very important that we recognise the increase from the first figures that we have had—the 4 million courses of treatment. We are also gathering information on preventative care and improvements in that respect. For example, we know that there have been 1.7 million preventative care appointments in dentistry.

However, as I highlighted in my introductory remarks, we recognise that there are issues in certain areas of Scotland. Ninety-five per cent of the population are registered with dentists, but I recognise that, in areas such as Dumfries and Galloway, the figure is in the mid-60s, so there is work to do. That said, our work on payment reform has been important in stabilising the situation with dentistry and has allowed us to look at specific areas where we need to do more work, whether they be specific areas of Scotland or areas such as employment, workforce and governance.