Dental treatment courses fall by 75% in Scotland during the pandemic
The number of courses of dental treatment carried out in Scotland fell by 75% in 2020/2021.
Statistics suggest that numbers fell from 4.1 million in 2019/2020 to 966,904 in 2020/2021. The number of courses of treatment provided for children dropped from 471,290 to 113,386 in the same period. This equates to a total decrease of 76.4% in treatment numbers for adults and children.
Public Health Scotland suggested that the pandemic had contributed to a reduction of around 3.5 million dental courses.
Dental appointments were cancelled while surgeries were forced to close between March and June 2020 and since practices reopened, they have been running at a reduced capacity in line with Covid-19 safety guidelines.
As a result, millions of appointments have been postponed across the UK and there are substantial backlogs of patients waiting for treatment. At the moment, many practices are offering urgent treatment and it could be some time before NHS clinics offer routine services.
The figures show that fees paid to dental practices decreased dramatically in 2020. Total funds dropped by £161 million from 2019/2020.
To help dentists, the government provided emergency funding as part of its Covid-19 financial support package and the British Dental Association (BDA) has urged Scottish ministers to consider extending support programmes for practices while they are operating at a reduced capacity.
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