NHS dental payment reform: equality impact assessment

Executive summary

Payment reform will be implemented on 1 November 2023 with a key aim to sustain and improve patient access to NHS dental services. This will be done by replacing the existing care and treatment fees with a new set priced at levels that we believe will incentivise dentists to provide a full range of NHS care and treatment.

The reform is predicated on moving the sector to a high-trust/low bureaucracy model of payment, that affords far greater levels of clinical discretion to practitioners, and crucially greater visibility of NHS care to patients.

This policy will affect the dental sector (as providers of NHS dental services) and patients, as users.

The EQIA process has allowed the Scottish Government to consider how payment reform will impact on the people of Scotland. We are satisfied that there are no overall negative impacts on people with protected characteristics, with the view that the net effect is positive on those groups of people. The main objective of payment reform is to sustain access to NHS dental services. To the extent that reduced access to NHS dental services has a disproportionate effect on patients with protected characteristics and recourse to private dentistry, then payment reform in preserving NHS services has a disproportionate benefit for these patients.