DT News - UK - Workers forced to take unpaid leave for dental visit

Dental Tribune International

Thu. 24 May 2012

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RUGBY, UK: A recently published survey undertaken by the British Dental Health Foundation (BDHF) has revealed that more than half of the UK workforce does not visit their dentist on a regular basis because they are not allowed to take time off work for dental check-ups.

The survey showed that only 43 per cent of workers in the country are allowed to take paid time off work to visit a dentist. The situation appears to be even worse for parents, since only one in four employees is allowed to take time off work to take their children to the dentist.

Moreover, the BDHF found that less than one in ten workers (7 per cent) received occupational health information from their employers about the importance of maintaining good oral health. It estimates that two million people in the country have missed days of work unnecessarily over the past five years owing to avoidable dental problems.

The survey also found that 13 per cent of workers took time off without pay to visit their dentist. Nearly 30 per cent took paid leave or visited the dentist in their private time and almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of parents said that they took either paid or unpaid leave to take their children to the dentist.

“What many employers don’t realise is that poor oral health is increasingly being linked to other more serious medical conditions such as diabetes, strokes and heart problems, which cause even greater difficulties regarding absenteeism,” said Dr Nigel Carter, Chief Executive of the BDHF.

Although the Information Centre for Health and Social Care’s 2009 Adult Dental Health Survey observed that the prevalence of tooth loss among adults has generally fallen since the late 1980s, almost a third of UK adults (31 per cent) have tooth decay. In the survey, only ten per cent of dentate adults in the country had 18 or more sound and untreated teeth and roots without signs of decay.

The survey was published by the BDHF in light of National Smile Month 2012, which is run from 20 May to 20 June.

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