Posted by : Gabriella Constantini in (Dental health)
The dental health of Scotland
Tagged Under : demographics, Dental health, health, society
The dental health of children in Scotland has for some time given great cause for concern. With the exception of the Forth Valley area, five-year-old children in Scotland have a higher incidence of missing, decayed or filled teeth than the national average for England and Wales. The worst-affected areas are Lanarkshire and Glasgow. In the most deprived areas the percentage of decayed teeth is as high as eighty per cent, compared to forty per cent in the least deprived areas.
“Oral health disorders are the most common reason for elective hospital admission of children in Scotland, accounting for over 10,000 episodes per year”, according to a statement by the National Dental Inspection Programme.
In an attempt to improve the general dental health of children in Scotland, the Childsmile Programme has been established. This is a 15-million national programme, funded by the Scottish government, and its aims are to improve the oral health of children in Scotland and to reduce inequalities in general access to dental services. Over nine hundred dental practices in Scotland are now members of the scheme.
A free dental care pack, containing a toothbrush, a tube of 1,000-ppm fluoride toothpaste and a dental health information leaflet, is provided to every child under the Childsmile Core Programme. All the products are supplied under a national contract, to ensure that the standard is consistent throughout the whole of Scotland. In addition, every nursery in Scotland, whether private, voluntary or local authority, is offered free daily supervised toothbrushing for the children. A number of nurseries and primary schools in target areas also supply fluoride varnish and supervised toothbrushing in the Primary 1 and Primary 2 classes.
The programme is progressing well, according to Shona Robison, the Scottish Minister for Public Health and Sport. She has said: “As a result of our efforts, dental health in Scotland is improving, particularly in deprived communities. In the Primary 7 age group dental health has never been better and on a Scotland level the target of 60% of this age group having no obvious decay has been met. This is a fantastic success story.”
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