Health and Community Care Committee, 27 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 27, 2000

Official Report 85KB pdf

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Organisations (Contacts)

Item 7 concerns contacts from outside organisations; paper HC/00/22/13 contains details of contacts that have been made with the committee. We have received no comments or suggested actions from members on that paper, except for Mary Scanlon's comments on the British Dental Association and Richard Simpson's comments on Greater Glasgow Health Board. In addition, we agreed previously that the committee wanted to meet informally the Health Technology Board for Scotland, the Clinical Standards Board for Scotland and representatives from the Scottish intercollegiate guidelines network.

The British Dental Association offered to give us a presentation on how dentistry in Scotland could be developed; that would include a discussion on "An Action Plan for Dental Services in Scotland". That would be useful to the committee as we have been in operation for more than a year and have not examined specifically any matters relating to oral health. We should consider fluoridation, which members mentioned in the debate on public health last week. Another issue that we could consider concerns the availability of training places for dentists in Scotland. Mary Scanlon has raised that issue with me. The presentation would be useful in a number of ways.

We have two dental schools in Scotland and I understand that more women are going into dentistry. I welcome that, but women also have career breaks and maternity breaks; I am told that, although the same number of dentists can be trained, not as many dentists are available as there used to be. If the action plan, which I think is excellent, is implemented we may be storing up serious problems with a shortage of dentists. I would welcome the committee's inviting the views of Professor Saunders, the dean of the dental hospital in Dundee, on that issue. If we did that, we could consider the situation not just from a practitioner's point of view but in the context of long-term planning.

We should also consider the views of Alastair MacLean from the BDA.

Indeed.

If we are having a presentation from the British Dental Association, that is fine, although we should be fairly prescriptive on the subject of the discussion. If we decide to invite others to discuss the wider issues of dental practice and oral health, by all means let us do so, but we must be clear about what we are doing and give careful consideration to who should be invited.

I assume that the committee would want an informal presentation from the BDA rather than a formal meeting.

Members indicated agreement.

If the presentation is to be informal, I do not see the relevance of inviting somebody from the dental school in Dundee unless we intend to broaden out the discussion and to invite others. I thought that we specifically wanted a broad presentation from the BDA.

We could consider waiting lists. The dental hospital in Glasgow is worried not about career breaks—such breaks happen everywhere—but about having waiting lists of up to 70 weeks for some patients. The dentists there are under severe strain. I would like to hear from someone about dental health education for children. I return to the point I have made in the chamber several times: sweetie vending machines are being installed in schools, while the Minister for Health and Community Care is giving out free toothpaste.

Does the committee agree that we should have an informal presentation from the BDA and that, in accepting the BDA's offer to give us that presentation, we should highlight some of the issues that we have discussed this morning? We would include Mary Scanlon's point about training and ask for the BDA's comments on that. The BDA would be able to report on the training situation not just in Dundee, but throughout Scotland.

We will invite the BDA to make a presentation, but we will flag up some of the issues that we want it to cover and that we are likely to ask questions about.

Could we ask the BDA to make reference to fluoridation? At some point we will have to examine not just the efficacy of fluoridation, but the democratic process by which the decision on fluoridation will be made. That process is not a matter for the BDA, but I think it would be helpful to establish—

That is a major issue. Last week, the Minister for Health and Community Care made the point that, although we have always tended to think of fluoridation of the water supply, other methods are available. It might be worth considering that and asking the BDA for its view on the effectiveness of those other methods. As you say, there is some concern about fluoridation.

Shall we leave it at that? If members want to suggest any other issues that could be highlighted at the meeting with the BDA, they should e-mail the clerks. We will pass that information on to the BDA and organise a meeting.

We must be clear why we are accepting the BDA's offer. We are not just responding to a request that we have received from an organisation. The issues that we would discuss with the BDA could link with our programme of work and aspects of the public health agenda that we talked about earlier, such as fluoridation, and the demonstration projects on which Hugh Henry will report back to the committee. We get so many requests. Many organisations hold informal, lunch-time briefings that members can attend if they wish. Contact could be pursued in that way with many of the organisations that contact us, but because the BDA links in to a specific part of our work, I agree with the suggestion that has been made.

The BDA presentation would be linked specifically with the action plan, which is an excellent document on the provision of service. Every dentist is a member of the BDA, and although Alastair MacLean can give us some information, if we decide to have a one-off committee meeting, at which we would take a sharply focused look at the service, we could not consider long-term provision without harnessing the input of dental schools as well.

I suggest that we agree to have an informal presentation from the BDA to give us background on all the issues that we have raised. Any other issues that members wish to bring to our attention should be suggested through the clerks. Are we agreed?

I just want to sound a wee health warning, convener. You are probably well aware that, once we get into the fluoride argument, we can write off the next 40 years of our lives. That argument has been going on for about 35 years.

I know. However, there is a commitment in the partnership document and the white paper to deal with fluoridation and to open up the issue to widespread public consultation at some point. We all appreciate the serious nature of the concerns about dental health, in particular regarding children. As a result, we must be well acquainted with the arguments, but I take on board your health warning.

Richard Simpson commented on the contact from Greater Glasgow Health Board.

I cannot remember what I said; it was so long ago. I think that I expressed slight concern about having a presentation from only one acute services review group. The only advantage of meeting GGHB would relate to what it went through with Stobhill. It would be interesting to hear how the board managed the consultation process.

I would not be keen on having such a meeting in the middle of an acute services review. My constituency is geographically distant from Glasgow, but it would appear—

I cannot remember exactly what my comment was.

Your comment was probably what everybody else was thinking.

GGHB appears to have learned something from Stobhill.

I think it would be at some pains to do that.

We would get drawn into the argument about where the hospital should be sited.

There would be nothing to be gained at this stage from inviting Greater Glasgow Health Board to make a presentation.

The board is probably doing informal briefings for Glasgow MSPs.

I think it is.

I had a useful meeting with Greater Glasgow Health Board yesterday, and I certainly agree that the committee should meet the board in future, but the best time for that to happen would be at the end of the acute services review. The board has a constructive case to make, post-Stobhill, and is keen to interact with the committee. It is also keen to repair some of the damage that was done.

Leaving aside the question of repairing the damage, if we see improvements in future consultations we should be big enough and ugly enough to acknowledge those improvements and the fact that our comments, which we felt compelled to make, had been taken on board. The same principle would apply to any health board, and for whatever reason we made our comments.

There would probably be merit in inviting Greater Glasgow Health Board to give a presentation at some future date. An informal presentation might be more useful.

I apologise for missing some of the discussion; I had to leave the meeting briefly.

I am interested in what is happening in Glasgow, but why are we considering an invitation to Greater Glasgow Health Board rather than to any other health board?

In fact, Richard Simpson had commented that we should not hear from one specific health board. His comment was a sort of negative instrument, if you will.

We have agreed what to do about the BDA. With regard to other organisations, where no comments have been received from members, it is recommended that we thank the organisations for their invitations and take no further action at this time.

Are we all agreed?

With the exception that if the organisation is organising an informal lunch-time briefing, we would be interested.

Yes. We should encourage that.

We should not lose sight, for a minute, of the time that committee members commit to attending such meetings and briefings with organisations. We all do that and find it useful. Are we agreed on the recommendation?

Members indicated agreement.