LONDON, UK: It can sometimes feel like dentists are fighting a losing battle when it comes to children’s oral health, especially given that recent figures from NHS Digital show that the number of children admitted to hospital for tooth decay has risen for the second consecutive year. It comes as welcome news, then, that around 30,000 children in the London Borough of Ealing have registered with a dental practice this year, thanks in part to Starting Well: A Smile4Life Initiative.
The initiative, run by NHS England, is intended to reduce oral health inequalities and improve the oral health of children under 5 years of age. This is done by focusing on those children not currently regularly attending a dentist and by providing their parents with advice regarding sugar intake and the benefits of fluoride exposure for teeth.
Though it will eventually be a national programme, Starting Well: A Smile4Life Initiative was launched in 13 high priority areas in January 2018, one of which was Ealing. These areas were chosen on the basis of local trends in oral health, existing oral health improvement plans and local authorities’ experience with tooth decay.
At the recent BDIA Dental Showcase, Kelly Nizzer, Regional Lead for Dental, Pharmacy and Ophthalmic Services at NHS England's London Region Team, outlined how well the initiative had performed.
“It has worked so well for us and we are giving training to the dentists with paediatricians from the hospital and community dental services along with Health Education England,” said Nizzer.
“A number of our practices in Ealing have done things like events. In one event, there's a parade taking place. Around 40,000 people go through the whole of Ealing for a religious ceremony and all those practices came and had stands there and got to talk to a number of people. We had about 400 new children from 0 to 5 that have gone into the practice from that event. We provide them with various resources to help them.”
Due to the initiative’s success, it is likely to soon be expanded to other London boroughs like Stratford and Hammersmith. This would likely involve commissioning new dental practices and including auditable oral health promotion in their contracts.
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