Children’s Oral Health

Debate between Philippa Whitford and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Whitford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was not trying to give any other impression. I said that the core programme is the education of 90,000 children about how to clean their teeth and discussions with their parents about that. The problem is that we waste an opportunity if we stop there. There needs to be a link between health visitors, nurseries and dental practices, and there certainly needs not to be a contract that punishes and penalises dentists for investing in patients. The fact that dentists do not have long-term registered patients means that they do not look at patients with a long-term view and say, “If I do more work now, they will have better dental health later.”

In Scotland, 92% of the population is registered; the number of people who are registered has risen from 2.6 million to 4.9 million. Registration is actually higher in deprived areas than in rich areas. Unfortunately, attendance is not always higher, but people are at least already registered with a practice.

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. I am conscious that this debate is about children’s oral health, but does she accept that, given the growth in the elderly population, the problems that she has indicated will only get worse if we do not have better registration and intervention?

[Dr Whitford]

I totally agree. In so many areas, the health of an adult—even an elderly adult—is actually laid down in their first five years. That is nowhere clearer than in dental health. Laying down good foundations in childhood is critical to allowing many more older people to have healthy teeth and, in particular, healthy gums—in the end, more tooth loss is due to gum disease—and to hang on to their teeth. Registration is important, because it gives people a relationship with a dentist. For people who are frightened of the dentist, knowing their dentist and having access to extra support such as hypnosis, if that helps, is valuable.

Childsmile costs £12 million a year in Scotland in terms of total dental health, but it has saved £5 million in dental treatments and extractions. We heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) about the money that is coming back. That could be used to set up a programme in England. I welcome the pilots, but those are in only 13 of the 23 worst areas in England. Why do the UK Government feel that they need to pilot? The evidence is there from 10 years of Childsmile in Scotland. If they just looked at the data and designed a national programme for England, in the end they would save not just money but children’s dental health.