The Cabinet Secretary recently told us that the multiplier - which at its current level increased NHS fees by 1.3 - had not been included in the Scottish Government's budget forecasting. We have not ceased reminding officials that without an adequate interim funding package several key treatments including extractions, and anything - like dentures - that requires laboratory work, risk being delivered at a financial loss.
We are clear this cannot presage a return to 'business as usual' from April 2023. In the months ahead efforts must be made to deliver needed change to the broken high volume/low margin model NHS dentistry is based on. Without needed reform, this package will simply delay an inevitable exodus of dentists from the NHS that is already evident in other UK nations.
While COVID emergency measures have been withdrawn, dentistry in Scotland has not returned to anything resembling pre-pandemic norms, with practices continuing to work under capacity in the face of an historic backlog. Latest figures indicate 261,537 claims were made by dentists delivering NHS treatments in July 2022, less than 60% of the number made in the same month in 2019.
Recent research by the BBC indicated 9 in 10 practices UK-wide were unable to take on new adult patients. In Scotland figures stood at 82%, the multiplier likely playing a decisive role.
"The Scottish Government seem to have recognised the wholesale inadequacy of the funding model for NHS dentistry" says SPDC Chair David McColl.
"It's not rocket science. Without additional support, the basics of NHS care – from extractions to dentures – would have been delivered at a loss. No business can operate on that basis.
"We now need some serious long-term thinking. Unless Ministers are prepared to revisit the system this service is built on, this funding will amount to sticking plaster on a gaping wound.
"If this is just delaying the return to a broken 'business as usual' then millions of patients stand to lose out."