\n The party has said that dental charges are costing Scots hundreds of pounds each year and changes need to be made in order to allow more patients to get treatment.\n<\/p>\n
\n Scottish Greens<\/a> co-leader, Gillian Mackay explained: \u201cDental care should be treated like the rest of our NHS, free at the point of use and readily available for everybody.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cToo many people are either living in pain or opting to pay for healthcare that is supposed to be free, because the system is not working as it should.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cScotland has been promised time and time again that our dental system would have equal access and dental charges would be abolished, but those promises have not been delivered.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n READ MORE: ‘Marmalade is not just a spread’ \u2013 Scottish preserve giant weighs in on changes<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n The Greens are also looking at overhauling the NHS’s guidance given to dentists on accepting new patients, saying people are struggling to be seen by dentists.\n<\/p>\n \n Part of these plans would be to expand the role of dental therapists to alleviate pressure.\n<\/p>\n \n Mackay added: \u201cOur NHS is supposed to be for everyone, but when it comes to dental care, it has become a postcode lottery.\n<\/p>\n \n “Just getting an NHS \u00a0dentist appointment in the first place has become far too difficult for far too many people across Scotland.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Scottish Greens will expand the role of Dental Therapists, so that more people can be registered, creating more appointments and reducing waiting times, all while allowing dentists to focus on the treatments which specifically require their expertise.”\n<\/p>\n \n The announcement comes after the party launched its election campaign on Thursday. During the event they pledged free bus travel for everyone in Scotland,<\/a> expanding on the benefit received by under 22s and over 60s.\n<\/p>\n \n Other recent pledges include banning “cruel” shock collars<\/a> and a single ticketing system for buses, trains and ferries across Scotland.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The party has said that dental charges are costing Scots hundreds of pounds each year and changes need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-512480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}