Gathering views on the future of oral health in Scotland
The Scottish Government’s Chief Dental Officer and Dentistry Division asked us to help with a consultation exercise on the future of Oral Health services.
The purpose of the consultation was to build on the success of actions undertaken since the publication of the Dental Action Plan in 2005 and produce a new Oral Health Improvement Plan which would guide the development of services for the next 10 to 15 years.
Small discussion groups were organised in 8 NHS board areas across Scotland. In a ninth board area, 3 sites were visited and face-to-face interviews conducted with parents, grandparents and carers of young children. A total of 113 members of the public took part (55 attended the discussion groups and 58 gave their views in one-to-one discussions). Discussions and questionnaires focused on predetermined questions designed to gather feedback on 5 main themes:
- general views on dental care
- links between oral health and general health
- cost and value of dental care
- the national Childsmile programme, and
- services for older people
This report summarises what people told us.
Impact
Feedback gathered in our focus groups, including comments from participants, was included in the Oral Health Improvement Plan which was published by the Scottish Government on 24 January 2018.
One of the things people told us was that dental patients were often not made aware of costs until after their treatment (and when they came to pay for it) nor that payment plan options were available. We highlighted this to the Scottish Government, and as a result the Oral Health Improvement Plan will require dentists to make this information more readily available to the public.