Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of children aged five have dental disease in each local authority area of England.

The latest data on the prevalence and severity of dental decay in five year olds was reported in 2015 in The Oral Health Survey of Five Year-Old Children 2014/15. The ‘Lower Tier, Upper Tier Local Authority (LA), PHE Centre and regional results tables 2015’ can be accessed from the survey here:

http://www.nwph.net/dentalhealth/survey-results%205(14_15).aspx.

Within the table, the tabs ‘Upper Tier LAs’ and ‘Lower Tier LAs’ give information on the number of five-year-olds per LA (column D), the number of five-year-olds in that area examined for the survey (column E) and the percentage of those examined with and without tooth decay (columns L and K respectively). An estimate of the number of five-year-old children in the LA with dental decay can be calculated from this information.