Action Plan for Improving Oral Health and Modernising NHS Dental Services in Scotland
An overhaul of NHS dentistry services, with an increase in the NHS funding of primary care dental services by £45m in 2005-06, by £100m in 2006-07 and by £150m in 2007-08.
It is designed to ensure that:
- Every child in Scotland will have access to dental care on starting nursery by March 2008 - in other words, an additional 50,000 children every year
- Scotland will have the largest supervised toothbrushing programme in Europe with over 120,000 children receiving free toothbrushes and toothpaste and taking part in daily brushing at nurseries and schools across the country
- Scotland will gain over 200 extra dentists by 2008
- An additional 400,000 people will be registered with an NHS dentist by March 2008
- Measures to make dental registration a continuing and not a time-limited system, with defined responsibilities for both dentists and patients
- A range of recruitment and retention measures will be introduced, including a new bursary scheme for dental students, subject to a commitment to NHS dentistry for five years after graduation
- Dental practices which meet agreed standards will qualify for a new rental (or equivalent) reimbursement scheme
- Red tape will be slashed in dental practice - 'Item of services' fee for dentists will be hugely simplified from 400+ items down to around 50
- From April 1 2005, NHS Boards have been given authority to appoint directly salaried dentists
This Action Plan for Improving Oral Health and Modernising NHS Services is a response to two consultation exercises: