DT News - UK - Drive launched to tackle dental caries in children in Manchester

Dental Tribune UK

Tue. 19 February 2019

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MANCHESTER, UK: In the Greater Manchester region, the most common reason for young children being admitted to hospital is to have a tooth removed. In response to this pressing issue, health professionals are launching a £1.5 million programme with a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to help tackle the poor oral health of under-5-year-olds in the area.

The programme has been organised by the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP), a governmental body that oversees the NHS in the region and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. It will see supervised toothbrushing introduced in schools and nurseries, with dental care incorporated into routine health care checks in certain areas with a particularly high prevalence of childhood caries.

More than 15,000 tooth extractions have been carried out in children in the region over the past four years, according to the GMHSCP. Overall, more than one-third of 5-year-olds across Greater Manchester have experienced caries, significantly higher than the English national average of 25 per cent.

The GMHSCP announced that it would initially be targeting four areas with the programme—Salford, Rochdale, Bolton and Oldham—since these areas were identified by the NHS and Public Health England as being some of England’s highest priority areas for improving children’s oral health. More than half of all 5-year-olds in Salford and Oldham have experienced caries, and 44 per cent and 41 per cent in Rochdale and Bolton, respectively.

Working with local schools and nurseries in each area, the GMHSCP will attempt to improve the oral health of these children by distributing toothbrush and toothpaste packs at health visitor checks, improving access to dental services for children, and introducing daily supervised toothbrushing in nurseries and schools, among other things.

Dr Claire Stevens, CBE, paediatric dentistry consultant at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and children’s oral health lead with the GMHSCP, told the British Dental Journal: “This new initiative is aiming to tackle the very real problems we face in Greater Manchester with large numbers of young children experiencing significant tooth decay often before they even reach school age.”

“Such problems can cause pain, sleepless nights and missed days of school for many children. Across Greater Manchester, this is adding to the daily challenges faced by many of our least well-off families and putting additional pressures on the NHS. Our new £1.5 million oral health programme will tackle these impacts and will hopefully play a vital role in our ambition of giving all of our children the best start in life,” she explained.

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