What about treating childhood teeth decomposition?

Liverpool’s Public Health Director has vowed to stop rot when it comes to decomposition of teeth among elementary school children amid concerns about increasing issues.

Professor Matt Ashton told a council meeting that oral health in the city is not “in good shape”.

Almost half of the five -year -olds across the city have “visually obvious dental decomposition” according to the latest data published by the Liverpool City Council.

Since 2019 there has been a 37% increase in “obvious dental decomposition” for children.

Professor Ashton said the city would not “let the unacceptable situation” continue.

According to a dental epidemiology study conducted by England’s public health last year, 6 children in the city also had visually obvious dental decomposition.

This is higher than the national average and average for northwestern England.

Tooth extraction is still the most common hospital process for Liverpool’s five to nine years.

Nearly nine of the 10 hospital teeth extracts between children up to five years are due to a decomposition of teeth that can be prevented.

Because of this, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visited Alder Hey Children’s Hospital In Liverpool earlier this year to talk about his plans to introduce teeth brushing into schools.

Ian Ashworth, director of population health at NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, said poor oral health was linked to deprivation.

He said he was able to access a dentist was also a challenge for many families.

“He is well documented the challenges for access to dentistry,” he added, admitting “not resolved all night”.

He said his team was working to deliver oral health packages to children in degraded parts of Merseyside and Cheshire alongside other services that their parents could have access, such as food banks.

He said that the reduction in sugar intake and the encouragement of healthy eating was also important.

In the year until June this year, almost 60% of children in Liverpool had seen a dentist in the previous 12 months and 36% of the adult population was observed in the past 24 months.

A Council report said there were various obstacles to access to dental benefit, including expenditure, lack of availability of services and services that were not assigned to local needs.

The number of people in contact with Healthwatch Liverpool, an independent defense team for people who use health and social care services, for their difficulty taking dental treatments, also increased by 354% between April 2021 and March 2022.

Professor Ashton admitted that access to dental services “is not great”, but this work was carried out in the local year.

Last month, children across Liverpool were involved in sugar awareness week and students received savings from sugar bottles to encourage them to drink water.

Other measures include the fluoride varnish applied to all children twice a year during a visit to the dentist, which has increased to three times for those who were considered high risk.

However, this is based on the child who watches the dentist in the first place.

Professor Ashton said: “There are things we can and do local, there are also things that need to happen in terms of general reform of NHS dental contracts, but we are not going to sit down and leave the unacceptable state in dental health to apply to citizens So we will really work, really difficult to deal with this situation.