Paving the way to eliminating the dental health crisis in England

Shockingly, tooth decay is the number one reason why children are admitted to hospital in England, with recent figures from the Local Government Association (LGA), revealing that there were nearly 43,000 hospital operations to remove unhealthy teeth in children in the last year.

This is part of a wider children’s dental health crisis in England, where more than one in ten (12 per cent) three-year olds suffer from tooth decay, increasing to a quarter (25 per cent) of five-year-olds. What is more worrying is that this rises to half of all five-year olds in the worst affected local authority areas.

The Oral Health Foundation believes the report from PHE demonstrates how the introduction of water fluoridation can dramatically decrease the number of children suffering from tooth decay, reduce the huge inequalities that exist and improve the lives of millions across the UK.

The main findings from the report are:

5-year-olds in areas with water fluoridation schemes were 23 per cent less likely to suffer from tooth decay in the least deprived areas and 52 per cent less likely in the most deprived areas.