Children: Oral Health

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister appreciate that in Australia and the United States there is widespread community fluoridation? Fluoride has been established as one way of preventing dental decay. I went on to Google today and found an article that states:

“With 60 Years of Data and 3000 Studies, Australia Declares Fluoride ‘Completely Safe’”.


That is supported by community water fluoridation, which means that your water authority cannot only see that the right amount is put in but will take out any oversupply above the optimum rate. The noble Baroness said that she thinks that oral health is important for children from an early age; I took my treatment antenatally for my children, who have very good teeth.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My noble friend is quite right that fluoridation is effective. The 2012 Act allows local areas to choose to introduce it—with local legitimacy, which is important because this issue still stirs passions. We encourage any local area considering this—I believe that Greater Manchester is one—to look at the study my noble friend mentioned in order to see its effectiveness.

Nurses: Tuition Fees

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I think that the figure on shortfalls that the noble Baroness has given is not right. If one looks at the UCAS data, it shows, as I said, a small drop of around 6%, but the numbers going into training are comparable to 2014-15. She is quite right about the need for additional financial support, and there is £1,000 available for childcare support for those who need it, as well as exceptional support funds of up to £3,000.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there was a great disincentive for people to enter nursing when it was decided that it was necessary to have university-level academic education to do it? The SENs—the state enrolled nurses—were abolished. Does he think that the apprenticeship scheme, which I understand is put forward all the time as being the replacement for that, is really working well, or is there a need to bring back that middle layer of nurses who cannot get five A-levels but can nevertheless be excellent nurses?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My noble friend makes an important point. It is precisely to, if you like, recreate that route into nursing that the nursing apprenticeship and nursing associate positions have been created, and the numbers are increasing.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Public Health Functions) Order 2017

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

Yet we know that the Government are preventing Public Health England making strong interventions in the affairs of local authorities. I say to the Minister that it is all very well bringing this order—I am quite happy with the order itself—but when are the Government going to get a grip on the public health agenda? At heart, that is the issue we should really be discussing today.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord who has just spoken for setting out the fluoridation situation. I have written to the Mayor of Manchester on this very issue and sent him copies of all the Hansard replies over the years when I have asked what the difference is in health patterns between Manchester and Birmingham. The answer is always the dental situation. The general health in both the area that is fluoridated and the one that is not indicates no difference whatever. People who claim that fluoridation might be damaging to health have no foundation for that when the situation is the same in both cities.

What really alarmed me was when I read that Manchester was so desperately short of national health general anaesthetic beds for children in particular that it was having an effect on the whole bed supply, because so many children in Manchester required full clearance under general anaesthetic. It is hard to believe that it has reached a point where it is preventing other people having necessary operations. We also must not overlook the fact that those children will have been suffering considerable dental pain at the same time.

Another big pro for Manchester is that its water system is controlled by one large area, since it is large enough for that to be the case. In other local areas it might be that some very small local authority prevents the whole thing because its water would be taken into account when it was done. Greater Manchester is big enough to do this, though, and I hope it will. I am very pleased to hear that what the Minister said today is going to happen, and I am glad of the support of the Front Bench opposite.