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The problem is that there is not an “average patient”. Everyone in Scotland comes as an individual to see their NHS dentist.

The letters that I have been getting—I am sure that you are the same as me, in this regard—are about access to service. That is what people are really pushing for: they want to ensure that we improve access to NHS dentistry. As I said earlier, what we aim to achieve through the changes in regulations and fee structures is sustainability of services.

That is a really good question. The first thing that came into my head on NHS dentistry, and NHS boards more widely, was that people can feed in their views on the Care Opinion website. To be honest, high street dentistry—if I may describe it as that—is very much constructed of individual businesses, as Tim McDonnell has just said. However, I encourage people to use Care Opinion if they want to give feedback on NHS dentistry.

That is a very wide question. As I have said previously, the changes in the fee structure and the regulations will maintain and ensure the sustainability of the service across Scotland.

On encouraging people into dentistry, one of the areas that we want to look at is the workforce. There have been two pretty big impacts on the dentistry workforce. One is from Brexit and the difficulty that it created in getting dentists from outwith the United Kingdom to come to the UK. I have written to all my counterparts and their chief dental officers in the four nations, and we are organising a meeting to talk about how we can improve the throughput if dentists wish to come to practise in the UK—and specifically Scotland, from our perspective.

We also want to look at improving the workforce within dentistry. For example, there are some very highly skilled dental technicians, and we would like to explore giving them a bigger locus in seeing patients. We are talking about the possibility of doing that. That is not a magic bullet that will solve our issues, so we are working together on a lot of things. That is why the connections and discussions that we have with dentists, as Tim McDonnell and Tom Ferris have highlighted, are so important, whether they are through the BDA more widely or through the NHS directors of dentistry.

As we know, we lost one cohort of dental students during the pandemic, which is about 160 students, or 5 per cent of the workforce. I am pleased to be able to let the committee know—I might also have referenced this in my letter—that 183 dental students are going through training this year, which is incredibly positive.

With regard to the point about dental students not wanting to move into NHS dentistry, I know that the COVID-19 Recovery Committee took such evidence. However, evidence that the Scottish Government and officials have had does not, in fact, show that. Many students want to go into the NHS because it gives them such a fantastic training base. My local practice on Islay supports trainees to come and experience working in a rural practice, which gives them a wide range of training opportunities.

I have been in this role, and have been an elected person, long enough to know that it is very difficult to guarantee anything in this life. What we have done is based on discussions with dental practitioners in Scotland and takes cognisance of academic research, to which I referred earlier. We believe that it is the right change at this time to ensure that access to NHS dentistry in Scotland is maintained.

The intention of the reforms is to ensure that we continue to make NHS dentistry attractive to dentists.

Most definitely. The cost of living issue floods through every decision that we make just now, so it is absolutely something that we will be keeping an eye on.

We have been aware of that in planning for the change, which will happen next week. As I said earlier, my officials have held a number of webinars with dentists to explain the new regulations and way of working. I understand that they have been extremely well appreciated and well attended. I think that there were about 1,000 people at the first webinar meeting, which was oversubscribed. As a result, another one is being held tomorrow evening to ensure that dentists are across the subject. We are also doing webinars on specific subjects, including periodontistry, to ensure that the reform is widely known about across the profession. Feedback has been incredibly positive.

I thank my officials for the work that they have put into that engagement, because I appreciate how important it is that the professionals absolutely understand the changes that we are making.

On public messaging, you are absolutely right. In fact, I walked past a dental surgery in Glasgow the other day and thought, “Oh my goodness, they’ve got their poster out early”, but it was a different poster. We are doing a variety of public engagement and messaging, including posters in dental practices, libraries and so on, as well as a multimedia campaign, so the information will be on the radio and other media outlets. I hope that we have everything covered, but we will evaluate that as we go.

The Government supports people on low incomes in a number of ways. I think that between 20 and 25 per cent of adults in Scotland do not have to pay for their NHS treatment. The fact that we have free examinations is important as well.

Earlier, I highlighted other initiatives, such as childsmile for getting younger children into the habit of cleaning their teeth, which have been incredibly helpful. Statistics that came out today show that 82 per cent of primary 7 schoolchildren have no obvious tooth decay. That high level backs up the investment that we have put into the preventative side of oral healthcare for children.

As I said, we have made it very clear that we will have continual discussions with the BDA about the payment reform that we have introduced.