SCOTLAND, with its penchant for sweets and fizzy drinks, is the last country in the world that should want for dentists. However, on top of an already recorded fall in the number of registered practitioners between 2016 and 2017 – and after a survey last year found 60 per cent UK-wide considering leaving the profession – we learn that the proportion of Scottish recruits to our dental schools is falling.

This is worrying – not because patients by and large will be concerned by the nationality of their dentist – but because foreign students are more likely to return to their home countries upon graduating. Patients here will then be lucky to find a dentist at all. Our investigation today reveals that the proportion of first-year international students at Glasgow Dental School has risen nearly five-fold in seven years, while the percentage of Scottish places has fallen. As Scottish students are more likely to remain in Scotland and work for the NHS, the British Dental Association has unsurprisingly expressed concern and is calling on Glasgow University and the Scottish Government to ensure Scottish applicants are not disadvantaged compared with others.

As matters stand, the number of places on offer at our universities to Scottish and non-UK EU students is capped by the Scottish Government, based on projections of future workforce needs. But, as our future dental workforce looks like being deficient, this way of working might need reviewing. Such matters are admittedly complicated by Brexit raising concerns that fewer EU students will remain in Scotland. A system of “locking in” students to work within NHS Scotland for a specified number of years on completion of their training already exists – but only for students in receipt of a bursary. Most new students can leave the country immediately after their training, and perhaps that also needs to be reviewed.

It is puzzling why the proportion of new Scottish undergraduates has fallen so drastically – from 85 to 67 per cent at Glasgow, and from 80 to 63 per cent at Dundee. The Tories blame SNP Government policy and come across as dental nationalists when they complain that Scots are being “squeezed out of their own universities”. Meanwhile, the nationalists come across as enthusiastic liberal internationalists by bringing in so many foreign students.

However, the political hot air surrounding the subject provides more heat than light, and what we need are practical solutions to ensure we don’t have a serious shortage of dentists in future. As well as re-examining capping levels and locking in, we might also encourage more Scots to apply for dentistry places, perhaps through incentives and improved conditions of service within the profession.

One thing is for sure: Scotland needs dentists.