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Getting to the root of decline in dentistry and updating Tory
knowledge of dental registration data:
in the Southern Reporter and Berwickshire News, January 2009
Dear Sir
Borders residents are yet again being asked to read
misinformation in the Tories' latest pamphlet. They highlight low
figures for NHS dentistry registrations and complain of a chronic
lack of dentists. However, I note that in attacking the SNP, John
Lamont has the brass neck to use a rehashed photo from 2007 taken
either before the election or soon after, when we had inherited a
crisis from Lib Dems and Labour. We have already seen a significant
improvement since then.
On registrations, he is quoted as stating that “Recent figures
showed that only 17% of adults in my constituency are registered
with an NHS dentist”. The figures are hardly “recent”. When the SNP
took office the figure was actually just 16.4%. However, it was
22.7% by June 2008, after 12 months in Government, and rising. The
corresponding figure for the Borders as a whole was 42.2% (up from
36.4% in 2007). Crucially, the proportion of children registered
with an NHS dentist in Roxburgh and Berwickshire had increased from
49.9% to 60.9%, and was 65.2% for the NHS Borders area as a whole,
i.e. up from 58.6%. However, it is yet more brass neck from him as
he cries crocodile tears over a lack of dentists. In 1989, a
Conservative government allowed the closure of Edinburgh
University’s dental school to new students on cost grounds. Over the
period between1993/94, when the final degree graduates were awarded
their degrees, and 2007, the number of graduates dropped by 40 per
year. So, as a consequence of Tories allowing the school to close,
there were 500 fewer dental graduates by 2007 than there might
otherwise have been.
After years of inaction from other parties, a third dental school
was commissioned by the SNP Government almost immediately following
taking office. It opened in October 2008 in Aberdeen and, at a cost
of £21 million, will increase the supply of dental professionals in
Scotland. The new dental school will ultimately see a further 80
dentists in training at any one time, with 20 students per year
group over a four year degree. Even before that happy event, figures
released recently by ISD showed that by September 2008, the number
of general dental practitioners in Scotland offering NHS services
had increased by 157 (6.2 per cent) to 2,703 from levels in 2007.
However, to fully recover lost ground caused by the Tories will take
time.
As for the December UK ‘Populus’ opinion poll quoted in the Tory
pamphlet, continuing the trend of Tories putting their heads in the
sand over Scottish polls, the Scottish sample of that very same poll
had the Tories on 15% (not 39% as he would clearly wish) and,
because he neglected to mention us, the SNP poll rating was 29%,
i.e. almost double the support of the Tories.
Yours faithfully
Paul Wheelhouse
SNP Westminster Candidate
Berwickshire, Roxburgh
and Selkirk Constituency
Ayton
Berwickshire
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