Children’s Oral Health

Julie Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. This debate is long overdue, as has been said by Members on both sides of the House. There is much agreement, and it has been really useful to hear from experts in the field—our dental and paediatric colleagues in particular.

We cannot say too loudly or too often how shocking the current state of affairs is. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) quite rightly said that we have a health emergency. We cannot stress too often the truly shocking statistics that have been touched on. The biggest cause of hospitalisation for five to 10-year-olds in England—bigger than broken arms, asthma, appendicitis and all the other things that we think about children being taken to hospital for—is teeth extractions. Up to 160 children a day are undergoing general anaesthetics in our hospitals for what is preventable, and a quarter of all our five-year-olds have decaying primary teeth. In some areas of the country the situation is far worse. Deprived children are seven times more likely to suffer from tooth decay than their peers. Indeed, in some areas of Lancashire, 56% of children are affected.

Another shocking statistic I came across in preparation for the debate relates to the shortage of dentists. The hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) rightly said that NHS dental checks are free for under-18s, but accessing an NHS dentist is not easy in many parts of the country. Only this week, Cornwall has reported a backlog of 14,000 people waiting to access an NHS dentist. Some people are having to travel 70 miles to see a dentist.

What effect is that having? We have heard extensively from Members of all parties about the effect on children. There is obviously suffering in terms of the pain of dental decay, and we have heard about the effects on childhood confidence. We have also heard about time lost from school. This goes beyond the suffering of children. We cannot afford to ignore the issue, given its effect on our economy. Even if we wanted to ignore the effect on our children—I am sure none of us does—all the evidence suggests that last year 1.2 million working days were lost as parents took time out of work to care for children who had oral health issues.

Of course, we cannot ignore the pressures on the NHS. We hear every week in this House about funding issues in the NHS and how it does not have the funding it so desperately needs. This preventable issue costs the NHS £5 million a year. That cannot go on—it makes no sense.

What are the answers? There are no quick fixes. Many Members have raised interesting ideas, and I think the answer lies in a combination of them. I hope the Minister will talk about his plans to reform the dental contract and that that will result in a dental contract in England that has prevention and public health at its heart and that builds in an element of sustainability for dental practices. I hope we will adequately fund more dentists. There is a massive shortage of NHS dentists, and Health Education England has cut funding to train dentists by 10%. Dentists have raised concerns with me about that this week. In particular, 17% of our NHS dentists come from the EU, and agencies that supply them to our NHS are already reporting a 90% fall in EU-citizen dentists willing to sign up to support our NHS.

As has been said, we desperately need a public health education programme. It was heart-warming to hear about the work done in Scotland through the Childsmile programme. I would like to see us go further in England, and I hope the Minister will assure us on that. It could be done in an affordable fashion by reinvesting the savings and ensuring that every health professional—everyone who comes into contact with a child from their earliest days, such as the midwife—plays a part in making sure that parents fully understand the oral needs of their children. We must ensure that every nursery schoolteacher is reinforcing that message. And, yes, in the same way as has happened in Scotland, and in some cases in Wales, toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well as fluoride washing, should be provided in the more deprived areas. We have heard about the positive impacts that fluoridisation can have, but that in itself is not an answer.

The wider benefits are hard to measure, but the impact on the NHS and on child wellbeing is crucial. As the chair of the British Dental Association said:

“These shocking statistics are rooted in an abject failure by government to tackle a preventable disease.”

I look to the Minister to assure us on those points and to tell us that we will go beyond pilots. As many Members have said, the evidence is there. This is an urgent situation. For the sake of our children, our NHS and the wellbeing of future generations, we need to tackle this as a matter of urgency.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I remind him that the convention is to let Mr McCabe wind up at the end.