Labor pledges to improve children’s teeth with 100,000 emergency dental appointments as…

11 June 2024, 05:50

Labor has said it will improve children’s teeth with 100,000 extra dental appointments if it wins the election.

Additional appointments, which will take place in the evenings and at weekends, will be accompanied by supervised tooth brushing sessions for children.

The £109m scheme will be paid for by cracking down on tax evasion and strengthening loopholes, Labor said.

It will also include increasing the number of NHS scanners with investment in artificial intelligence equipment, reforming the dental contract and signing bonuses to recruit dentists in areas of need.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting added: “What a tragic indictment of the state of NHS dentistry under the Tories, that children are embarrassed to speak out because of the state of their teeth.

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“Those old Victorian barbershop horror stories of people going berserk will come to fruition,” says dentist Paul Woodhouse

“Labour will provide an extra 100,000 children’s appointments a year and supervised brushing for three to five-year-olds, to bring smiles back to children.”

Eddie Crouch, president of the British Dental Association, said: “Supervised tooth brushing can help us shift the dial from drilling and filling to actively preventing dental disease.

“There is nothing ‘nationalist’ about a tried and tested policy that can save children pain and our NHS a fortune.”

Thousands of children were admitted to hospital with tooth decay last year.

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Some 47,581 tooth extractions were carried out in NHS hospitals in England for patients aged 0 to 19, with 66% – or 31,165 – leading to a primary diagnosis of tooth decay, a 17% increase on the previous 12 months.

Tooth decay remains the most common cause of admission to hospital for children aged between five and nine.

Hospital admissions for childhood tooth extractions cost NHS hospitals £64.3 million last year, with tooth decay-related extractions costing £40.7 million.

As well as children’s dentistry, the Work will also aim to provide extra hospital appointments, scans and surgeries for them.

Earlier this year, the Conservatives unveiled a plan to improve access to dentistry. They said dentists will be:

• Be offered £20,000 to work in underserved areas
• Getting paid more for NHS work
• To drive around in trucks to treat people living in remote areas

The plan also calls for the biggest expansion of water fluoridation in England since the 1980s and a ‘Smile for Life’ advice program aimed at new parents, as well as mobile dental teams to be deployed in schools.