Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 February 2022
I am grateful that the minister and the Government are taking that seriously.
In particular, people have got in touch with me about being unable to arrange appointments for their children. Many children across Scotland have not had a check-up in years. Of course, that is in part down to the pandemic, but there is also an issue of availability. It is particularly worrying that children will not receive attention during such an important growth period in their lives, when expert eyes are needed the most.
When the Government first came to power, it used child dental health as a metric for poverty in the national indicators. However, Scottish patients, instead of being provided with the care that they deserve, are instead being told to look for private care. As that is simply out of the question for so many families, yet another barrier is being placed before those who are struggling the most with the cost of living.
According to the most recent data, only 55 per cent of children from the most deprived areas of Scotland were able to get an appointment, in comparison with 73 per cent in the least deprived areas. That is a health inequality. Dentists in Scotland have warned us that such disparity will contribute towards a healthcare inequality gap in which disease and long-term problems will become more and more commonplace among the most disadvantaged. That simply does not cut it. The issue is not just dental check-ups; mouth cancer can be missed if people do not attend those important screening appointments. There are many groups—