Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, minister. I have been listening with interest to what has been said and reflecting on the view of dentistry that has been portrayed, which is markedly different from the evidence that we have heard before. As a committee, we have to assess the evidence that is before us. As my colleague Jackie Baillie said, dentists have repeatedly talked about wanting to look at prevention, which you will know is a passion of mine. They have also said that there is no immediate strategy or capacity to clear the backlog or take immediate action on poor oral health. In fact, last week, we heard from dentists that, under the current system, the backlog will never be cleared. The concern for me is the huge gulf between the evidence that we are hearing today and the evidence that we have heard over the past couple of weeks.

I will mention a couple of things. One is that, because of the big gaps between dental appointments, the treatment that dentists are having to provide is much more complex, which is an indication of a problem. The other is that dentists get paid when treatment is finished, which is a problem when it takes longer to complete treatment. For example, if there is an initial appointment, a filling that is done after three months and another filling that is done after another three months, the dentist is not paid for six months. Dentists say that the system cannot continue.

If we are going to fix this, which I think that we all want to do, we have to understand the reality. The evidence that the committee has heard has painted an NHS dentistry system that, as John Mason said, students have said that they do not want to work in. We know that current NHS dentists are drifting towards the private sector. Help us here, minister. How do we close the gulf between what you are saying and the evidence that we have heard?

They are not in the EU, though.

Good morning, gentlemen. You have answered quite a lot of the questions that I was going to ask. What is really worrying, especially on the preventative side of things, is the inequality in the service, which we heard about last week, and how that affects Scottish index of multiple deprivation areas 1 and 2, as compared with the more affluent areas. What were your experiences of that during Covid? Why does there seem to be an increasing disparity?

How do we do that?

Is it not high volume, low margin?

Do not confuse me—I am easily confused.

I am sorry, but could you explain what you mean by taking things out that are not required?

I have so many more questions, but there is no time.

Just to clarify, I guess that the outcome of that is an increased number of children being referred to secondary care for extractions and the like, which is obviously more time consuming and more costly, and puts people back on the treadmill. That is the word that will stick with me from this evidence session.

This committee is called the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. You are painting a realistic, if reasonably bleak, picture of Scottish dentistry. David McColl said that we will not get out of the situation under the current system. The backlog will not be dealt with under the current system. Just for my personal understanding, I ask again: where do we need to go and what needs to happen to get us out of this situation and back on to a reasonable path?

You are describing a system that needs turned around, but it sounds a bit like trying to turn a tanker, in that it will take time and planning to deliver. We cannot all of a sudden make NHS dentistry attractive for new dentists. It will take a lot of time.