The Scottish Government has been urged to investigate why about half the people in the north and north-east are not registered with an NHS dentist.
Despite a steady but slow improvement, at the end of June the two areas had the lowest proportion of people on the books with an NHS dentist in Scotland – 48.6% in Gramp-ian and 53.9% in Highland.
By comparison Ayrshire and Arran had 75.3% and Lanarkshire 74.8% – above the Scottish average of 70.1%.
Liberal Democrat public health spokesman Jamie Stone said yesterday that ministers need to find out why the figures are so low.
“Around half of the population of Grampian and Highland still aren’t registered with an NHS dentist,” the MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said.
“Liberal Democrats introduced free dental checks and they’re a key tool in the battle against tooth decay. But if people aren’t registered with an NHS dentist, then they can’t access free dental checks.
“The Scottish Government needs to look into why so many Scots still aren’t registered with an NHS dentist.”
Child registrations across Scotland increased from 78% in March to 78.3% in June, and adult registrations went up from 62.4% to 63.5%.
Public Health Minister Shona Robison admitted there were problems in some parts of the country.
“I am pleased that there have been increases in both child and adult dental registrations in the last quarter,” Ms Robson said.
“However, we know there are still problems with access to an NHS dentist in certain parts of Scotland and we are continuing to tackle this.”
She said that last year the government announced £82million for capital projects, most of which will be used for NHS dental services, including 13 new stand-alone dental centres and two more as part of multifunction health centres.
“We now have outreach training centres in place throughout Scotland including Aberdeen, Inverness and Dumfries and Galloway and NHS boards have the authority to appoint directly-salaried dentists,” Ms Robison said.
“We are increasing the number of dental students in training and on January 19 we officially opened Scotland’s newest dental school in Aberdeen.
“The world-class facility will produce 20 trained dentists every year.
“In addition, more than 500 students now receive a dental undergraduate bursary scheme of £4,000 per year in return for commitment to work in NHS dentistry in Scotland.”
Aberdeen North SNP MSP Brian Adam said there were nearly 70,000 more people registered with an NHS dentist in Grampian than when the SNP came to power in May 2007.