Children: Oral Health

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Benjamin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to address the problem of child tooth decay, in the light of the finding by Public Health England in its most recent oral health survey that 25 per cent of five year olds had experienced dental decay.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

Public Health England, NHS England and the Department of Health are working together to improve children’s oral health. For example, the “Starting Well” initiative will support outreach to children not currently seeing a dentist in the areas of highest need, while dental contract reform supports our longer-term aim for all care to have a preventive focus. Furthermore, we are taking steps to reduce the amount of sugar consumed by children.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. We all need to ensure that everyone fully understands the importance of oral health practice, which, ideally, should start when babies are six months old. It is therefore great to hear that NHS England has introduced the “Starting Well” programme. However, this is being delivered in only 13 local authorities, despite the fact that many children across the country suffer from tooth decay; indeed, it is the No. 1 reason for hospital admissions. Will the Government therefore consider taking further action by introducing supervised tooth-brushing sessions in all nurseries, as they do in Scotland, to improve oral health education for all our children?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight this important issue. Twice as many five to nine year-olds are admitted to hospital with tooth decay as are admitted with broken arms—that is how bad the problem is. It has improved in recent years: 75% of all five year-olds have no sign of physical decay, up from 69% in 2008. Supervised tooth-brushing is part of the “Starting Well” programme, but Public Health England and local authorities are responsible for commissioning and will look at the results to see whether it can be rolled out into general dentistry practice.