Official Report 595KB pdf
The National Health Service (General Dental Services) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/380)
As we are running slightly ahead of schedule, I will now move to agenda item 3, which is to consider one Scottish statutory instrument under the negative procedure.
The purpose of the regulations is to amend the National Health Service (General Dental Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2010 to allow health boards to include the name of a dentist on their dental lists on a provisional basis where that dentist has not yet completed mandatory training where required by regulation 5A of the 2010 regulations, and to amend provisions relating to requirements to obtain the prior approval of the Scottish dental practice board before carrying out care and treatment.
The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 9 December and made no recommendations in relation to the instrument. No motion to annul has so far been received in relation to the instrument.
I declare an interest as a practising NHS GP.
Given the policy objectives and the movement to a high-trust, low-bureaucracy approach, I would be interested to know what sampling is taking place in terms of looking at a proportion of practices to ensure compliance. We have just been discussing death certificates, and we sample about 10 per cent of death certificates to ensure accuracy.
Moving on to the mandatory training aspect, I fully support the idea of getting people into work as dentists and, on the face of it, giving people a provisional status for six months is a very good thing. My question is, does that concern the NHS only, or does it include private work? Can a dentist take the six months and perform private work? Is there any oversight of the dentist over those first six months?
Those are my only questions. In general, I support the move to ensure that dentists are working here in Scotland.
Does the committee agree to not make any recommendations in relation to the regulations?
Members indicated agreement.
I will now suspend the meeting before we return to agenda item 2.
09:51 Meeting suspended.