The Scottish Government wants all children and young people to attain the highest standard of health and wellbeing possible, but we know some patients are waiting too long and we’re determined to do more and our Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care.We recognise that the current levels of paediatric tooth extractions in hospital are too high - our aim is to reduce the number of children requiring referral as much as possible.We continue to invest in our flagship preventative programme Childsmile, which provides oral health interventions for all children in Scotland, as well as targeted measures for children from the most vulnerable backgrounds.The Programme has supported significant improvements in child oral health in Scotland and a narrowing in child oral health inequality over the longer term.The 2024 National Dental Inspection Programme results show the gap between P1 children with no obvious tooth decay, living in the most and least deprived areas, is at its lowest on record – decreasing from 32.2 percentage points in 2010 to 23.5 percentage points in 2024.These figures also show three quarters of Primary 1 children have no obvious decay – this is up from 45% in 2003. S6W...