NHS dental payment reform: equality impact assessment record

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

Have positive or negative impacts been identified for any of the equality groups? Yes

Is the policy directly or indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010^[5]? No

If the policy is indirectly discriminatory, how is it justified under the relevant legislation? N/A

If not justified, what mitigating action will be undertaken? N/A

Describing how Equality Impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

Without intervention, in terms of payment reform and our improved fee offer, it is the Government's view that access to NHS dental services will deteriorate significantly. The EQIA shows that there is a high risk that this negative impact is experienced disproportionately by those groups in the population with protected characteristics.

The EQIA therefore demonstrates that a payment reform intervention is a necessary policy change that potentially will have a disproportionately positive impact on some patients with a protected characteristic.

Monitoring and Review

It is the intention that payment reform from 1 November 2023 will be supported by quarterly publications from Public Health Scotland. This will cover a range of data including activity levels across key treatment groups, registration and participation statistics and financial information on NHS dental expenditure.

The intention is also to have monthly updates for Ministers of management information, specifically how the payment reform changes are impacting on NHS dental service provision.

We will continue to rest on the National Dental Inspection Programme statistics that report on an annual assessment of the state of oral health in Primary 1 and Primary 7 school children.

We are also looking at how we might be able to report on adult oral health (at present there is not an adult oral health survey).

At present officials are looking at appropriate review mechanisms.