Christina McKelvie - MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Constituency has welcomes new measures to provide free NHS dental care for all young people aged 18 to 25 (inclusive) which were introduced at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 15 June.

Amendments to the regulations which cover the cost of NHS dental care will mean around 600,000 young people will benefit from free dental care from the end of August, subject to Parliamentary approval.

Commenting Christina said: “I am absolutely delighted to see this SNP Government make dental care free for so many of Scotland's young people. This is a sign of the ambition the SNP have for Scotland, we have gone even further than the promise we made in our manifesto to remove dental charges for care-experienced young people within 100 days of Government.

“Our NHS dental teams continue to face serious challenges during this period.  The situation is particularly hard on the dental sector, with added infection, prevention and control measures making it impossible for dental teams to see the same numbers of patients as before the onset of the pandemic. 

“The Government currently have in place a set of emergency financial support measures to mitigate the worst financial impacts of the pandemic on NHS dental services and have recently announced £5 million of funding to support improved ventilation in practices, as well as a 50% increase in free PPE to NHS dental teams."

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