NHS dentistry in Scotland is facing a looming crisis after it was announced graduations would be postponed and no new students taken on this year, leaving a potential shortage of trained staff.
There are fears that losing a cohort of freshly trained dentists will worsen the squeeze on services, amid already acute worries over their sustainability in the wake of Covid-19.
One senior figure told The Herald there was a pressing need for changes to the emergency funding model put in place to support practices and said the NHS risked haemorrhaging staff to the private sector or other countries.
Dentists warned previously that waiting times were going to “shoot through the roof” because of a virus-related cap on patient numbers, and that six-monthly check ups were unlikely to return.