Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the total cost to the public purse is of the Supervised Toothbrushing Programme.

The Department is investing a total of £11.4 million in 2025/26. This includes £11 million to local authorities in England to implement supervised toothbrushing schemes.

£400,000 is being retained nationally to support development of implementation resources and evaluation. Funding for subsequent years will be determined through the Spending Review.

The programme has been launched in collaboration with Colgate-Palmolive who are providing 23 million free toothbrushes and toothpastes which will reach up to 600,000 children each year.

Every £1 spent on supervised toothbrushing is expected to save £3 in avoided treatment costs, amounting to over £34 million over the next five years that can instead be spent on treating other patients.

Tooth decay remains the most common reason for hospital admissions in children aged between five and nine years old. The costs to the National Health Service of hospital admissions for tooth extractions in children aged between zero and 19 years old have been estimated based on the latest NHS national cost collection data, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/national-cost-collection/

The costs were £74.8 million for all tooth extractions and £45.8 million for decay-related tooth extractions in 2023/24.