Stevenson Welcomes Progress On Dental Registrations

Banff & Buchan MSP Stewart Stevenson has welcomed the fact that progress is being made on increasing NHS dental registrations in the Grampian region, with the latest figures showing that 46.6% of residents are now registered with an NHS dentist compared to just 35.2% when the SNP Government came to power. However, with NHS Grampian still lagging behind the rest of the country, more progress clearly continues to be needed to reverse the legacy of previous years.

Commenting, Mr Stevenson said:

“I welcome the fact that the figures for NHS Grampian are moving in the right direction after the appalling legacy on dentistry in the North East that the SNP Government inherited from the previous administration.

“Clearly there is still a long way to go before we reach an acceptable level of dentist registrations, but I am heartened by the Scottish Government’s commitment to improving dentistry in the North East which is in stark contrast to the outrageous neglect we saw prior to 2007.

“It takes time to undo the level of damage that was built up, but with more dentists being trained at the new Aberdeen Dental School which was recently opened by the First Minister, I am optimistic that we will continue to see further improvements in coming months and undo the decimation of dentistry in the region that we saw under the previous administration.”

NOTE:

Newly published figures show that in December 2009 there were 251,271 (46.6%) people registered with an NHS dentist in the Grampian NHS board area, compared to 186,686 (35.2%) in March 2007, the final set of figures before the SNP Government came to power. The full dataset can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4680.html