Some children in parts of England have ‘never’ seen a toothbrush, shockingly claims a dentist.
Dentist Stuart McCance, who visits schools in Norfolk and Waveney to promote good oral hygiene, said that for some six-year-olds, he’s the first dentist they’ve ever seen.
“In some cases, we’re finding that it’s the first time kids see a dentist — and they’re five or six years old — when we should be seeing kids as young as six months when their first tooth comes in,” he told the BBC.
“Some, even more worryingly, have never seen a toothbrush.”
His statement is the latest damning indictment of the state of NHS dentistry as patients and parents are unable to book an appointment.
A dentist visiting schools in Norfolk and Waveney said some children have never seen a toothbrush in the country’s latest oral health indictment (stock image)
Dentist Stuart McCance added that some children had “never seen” a toothbrush
The East of England, where Mr McCance visits, is one of the hardest hit areas by the national dental crisis.
According to the latest NHS data, less than half (45.3 per cent) of children there have seen a dentist in the past year.
And it is reported that no dental practice in the Norfolk and Waveney area is accepting children as new NHS patients.
This leaves their parents with no choice but to either pay expensive fees to see a dentist privately or forego it altogether.
Mr McCance visits schools as part of the Happy Smiles Club, an initiative of John G Plummer dentists in Norwich.
Five schools have been involved in the club since March last year, with dentists and dental nurses visiting students to educate them about oral health and to carry out checks if necessary.
They said they found half of just over half of the 169 children they saw at an unnamed school (88) need urgent dental treatment.
Meanwhile, they also found that 82 of the children were not registered with a dentist.
Dental nurse Chloe Blake, who also volunteers with the Happy Smiles Club, said that at the practice where she worked, she was constantly asked if they could accept new patients.
“We went through a phase where we were taking on patients — just kids — but we just got swamped,” she said.
The latest figures from the LG Information – a database run by the Local Government Association (LGA) – recorded there was only one NHS dental practice for every 4,975 people nationally at the start of 2023.
North Norfolk even outperforms the national average, with one NHS dental practice per 4,695 people.
But in South Norfolk and East Suffolk, where Waveney is based, the ratio to one NHS dental practice rises to 6,803 and 7,246 people respectively.
Some parts of the country are even worse, with just one NHS dental practice per 13,000 people.
And national NHS data showed that the East of England had the second lowest for children seen by an NHS dentist in the last 12 months, beating only London, where only 40.6 per cent of children saw a dentist in the year to June 2022.
All children in England are entitled to free NHS dentistry, but a lack of dentists taking on new care patients means many parents are unable to take advantage of this.
Earlier this month, industry figures lamented the state of NHS dentistry, with around 11 million people in England failing to get an NHS dental appointment last year.
The emergence of so-called ‘dental deserts’, where Britons are finding it increasingly difficult to access affordable dental treatment, has been blamed for the rise of ‘do-it-yourself’ dentistry.
This has led desperate Britons to resort to using shoelaces and pliers to pull out their own rotting teeth or making homemade dentures from resin and superglue.
As the Covid pandemic exacerbated the crisis, NHS dental services have been in trouble for years.
Recent industry polls suggest even more dentists are considering going completely private in the near future.
London recorded the lowest percentage of adults to see an NHS dentist in two years, according to NHS Digital data. The North East and Yorkshire recorded the highest rate at 41.8 per cent
The worst area in the country to receive NHS dental care is Kent, with just 407 dentists for a population of almost 1.6 million – or one in 3,904 people. While Hampshire, where the dental crisis has raged for several years, is rated as the second worst offender, with just one NHS dentist for every 3,773 people in its 1.85 million population
Groups such as the British Dental Association argue that under the current NHS contract it is no longer financially viable to offer NHS procedures due to a lack of government investment.
The NHS dental contract system is now under scrutiny by the Public Health Department and social care committee.
One of the Britons to take matters into his own hands was Antony Watson from Bridlington, Yorkshire.
Mr Watson originally broke his tooth 20 years ago when dentists gave him a crown at the time.
But he damaged it a second time after biting into a cookie.
He said he couldn’t get an NHS appointment because he wasn’t registered with any clinic and ‘absolutely couldn’t afford’ to pay for private treatment ‘on the spot’, forcing him to look elsewhere for a solution.
Mr Watson searched online for home delivery dental kits and chose the £3.99 kit because of the next day delivery benefit.
The kit included a 20g bag of plastic beads, which were then melted with boiling water and molded to fit the shape of your damaged teeth.
Meanwhile, Alex Gray, from Lincolnshire, was also forced to extract six of his teeth himself after failing to find an NHS dentist.
The retired roofer couldn’t find an NHS dentist after moving to Lincolnshire six years ago.
If a tooth “starts to fall out,” he takes painkillers, he said, and “wait until he goes numb,” before trying to pull the tooth out with pliers.
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