Gerard Boyle speaking
arrangement of a devolved parliament, while Holyrood is directly responsible for the management of the NHS in Scotland, the coffers of the NHS are controlled from down south by George Osborne and Danny Alexander. It is clear that these two ministers have a thinly disguised contempt for the public sector and do not value the importance of a comprehensive, state- funded NHS. With this coalition in power, we should all be worried. “Wisely, none of the devolved govern-
ments in Scotland have taken our NHS down the same path as the NHS in England. Only 84 per cent of healthcare south of the border is provided by the NHS. In Scotland, that figure is over 99 per cent. “This gives the public in England the
impression that NHS care is cheaper to deliver per capita in England. It isn’t. “It is just that people are having to pay
more privately in addition to their NHS care, and the combined cost is actually higher in England than it is in Scotland. “The Better Together campaign claims
that public services in Scotland are more expensive to deliver in Scotland than the rest of the UK and somehow it is in our interest to preserve the Union to ensure that these so-called handouts continue. What you should all know is that all the Unionist parties are planning to reduce the block grant to Scotland in future – the so-called Barnett squeeze. “This will mean a lot less money for the
NHS in future and less money for dentistry in Scotland. “The current UK Government has
been a member of any political party but I am a Labour voter and I will be voting Yes in the Scottish Independence Referendum on ı8 September. “From an NHS perspective as we look at
the continued viability of NHS dentistry, funding is the key. The Scottish budget for NHS dentistry is about £400 million a year. We have been told by the Scottish Government that, for the foreseeable future, this budget will be cash limited. With further UK Treasury cuts planned, it will not only be cash limited, it will probably be cut as well. “The cost of providing that service is
going up every year and the number of dentists in the system is continuing to rise. A cash limited system can only mean a per capita reduction to individual dentists and a corresponding reduction in the quality of the service. “Within the current constitutional
already started its war on the NHS, raiding our pension funds to pay for the failure of their financial system. A financial crisis that happened under the watch of Anas Sarwar’s UK Labour party. “Can I remind you that our pension fund is in surplus. I have looked at the basics of the economic argument and, while I am a dentist not an economist, I do have an ‘O’ grade in arithmetic and I also run a business. It is all about money in and money out. “In an NHS dental context, the big issues
are ‘Where is it coming from?’ and ‘How much is available?’. “Let me assure you, there is a lot more
of it in an independent Scotland. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to preserve the NHS, vote Yes.”
Clive Schmulian: “In the past 20 years there have been huge changes in dentistry and in politics in Scotland. And, unlike that really negative case presented by Gerry – the usual hatchet job attacking the Tories, attacking Labour, attacking everybody – I want to
put forward a positive case about the benefits of being in the Union. “One of the key things for me is that I
think that Scotland has the best of both worlds. We have a Scottish Parliament, created in ı999, which has responsibility for health, education, transport etc. In dentistry, we have seen the benefits of having a separate system, but still being part of the United Kingdom. “Let’s look at the benefits of devolution
for dentistry over the past ı0 years, deliv- ered by a liberal Labour administration and the SNP government. Let’s look at education and Aberdeen Dental School. Many of the young dentists here today will have benefited from student bursaries. These are all benefits of devolution. “The fact is that more money is spent
in Scotland per head of population than in England – £ı,200 more is spent the way the funding is created. That is what they don’t want to tell you and that is what we are trying to protect. “Let’s look at how the Scottish Parliament
has invested in dentistry in the past ı0 years. The Scottish Dental Access Initiative, Childsmile – putting prevention at the centre of our practices – that’s all funding from the Scottish Parliament and that could all be at risk under the plans of the SNP. “The reality is that there is one mention
of dentistry in the White Paper from the SNP and it is just a side mention when they are talking about doctors and dentists’ pay. There is no interest in dentistry whatsoever. It’s an afterthought. “At the moment, while the funding and
delivery of dentistry is organised by the Continued »
Scottish Dental magazine 35
Independence debate Clive Schmulian
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