§ Mrs. Margaret EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in theOfficial Report the number of general dental surgeons in practice in Scotland in each of the last 10 years, showing a breakdown of these numbers per 100,000 population in each of Scotland's health board areas.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythThe information is set out in the table. The numbers of general dental practitioners (as they are now known) are the numbers in contract with their health board as at 30 September each year. The numbers of dentists per 100,000 population are based on population figures at 30 June each year except for 1987 where the 1986 population figure is used.
65W
Health Board 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 (23) (24) (26) (26) (28) (26) (28) (26) (26) (29) Lanarkshire 112 112 116 132 129 134 136 129 138 143 (20) (20) (20) (23) (22) (23) (24) (23) (24) (25) Lothian 223 226 232 234 238 243 250 251 258 264 (30) (30) (31) (31) (32) (33) (34) (34) (35) (36) Orkney 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 1(16) (16) (17) (11) (16) (16) (15) (15) (16) (16) Shetland 3 4 3 3 4 6 8 4 4 5 1(14) (18) (13) (12) (16) (26) (34) (17) (17) (21) Tayside 101 106 113 120 121 119 120 121 124 129 (25) (26) (28) (30) (30) (30) (30) (31) (32) (33) Western Isles 3 4 5 5 7 7 7 8 10 12 1(10) (13) (17) (16) (22) (22) (22) (25) (32) (38) Scotland 1185 1204 1250 1302 1340 1365 1409 1386 1467 1515 (23) (23) (24) (25) (26) (26) (27) (27) (29) (30) 1 National figures.