'Abject failure' from government driving child hospital admissions

The BDA has strongly criticised the lack of a coherent national strategy or programme to improve decay rates among children in England. For more than a decade Scotland’s Childsmile programme and the Welsh Designed to Smile initiative have secured transformative improvements in oral health. MPs will discuss child oral health during a parliamentary debate tomorrow.

NHS England’s recently launched Starting Well programme has activity in just 13 local authorities, with no new funding attached and with the programme in London limited to just three council wards in the London Borough of Ealing. The Government has refused to answer parliamentary questions on how many children across England will benefit.

The BDA had expressed support for another pillar of the government’s approach to child oral health - the recently launched Dental Check by 1 (DCby1) campaign - but expressed its dismay that no new investment is attached to the project, and has noted that lack of capacity in areas including West Yorkshire will set real limits on what can be achieved with the policy.