Programme will reach up to 600,000 children in most deprived areas
Children in the most deprived areas of England will get access to a programme to help protect them from tooth decay, the government has announced today.
The supervised toothbrushing programme will be rolled out in early years settings and primary schools, with funding available from April, helping hundreds of thousands of children aged between 3 and 5 years old to develop positive brushing habits.
The scheme – a manifesto commitment – will be launched in collaboration with Colgate-Palmolive who are providing free Colgate toothbrushes, toothpaste and educational materials to continue good work at home.
This government inherited a children’s oral health crisis. The most common reason children aged 5 to 9 being are admitted to hospital is to have treatment for decayed teeth. Latest data shows one in 4 children aged 5 have experienced tooth decay in England, with higher rates of up to one in 3 in more deprived areas.
The scheme will help tackle these levels of poor health by ensuring they get the support they need to learn positive habits and prevent tooth decay – in turn avoiding related illness and poor health later in life.
To deliver the scheme, the government is investing a total of £11 million in local authorities across England to deploy supervised toothbrushing in schools and nurseries that voluntarily sign up. Local authorities will work to identify early years settings in target areas and encourage them to enrol.
To support the scheme, the government has also agreed an innovative partnership with Colgate-Palmolive, which has generously committed to donate over 23 million toothbrushes and toothpastes over the next 5 years. It is also providing educational materials and a public facing children’s oral health campaign supporting the NHS, developed with its experience of global oral health education.
The partnership is grounded in the shared mission and commitment between the government and Colgate-Palmolive to advance the oral health of the nation, by reducing the inequalities in oral health and ensuring access to oral health education for every child across the country.
Together, the resources will reach up to 600,000 children each year and provide families with the support they need to ensure positive behaviours continue at home and over the school holidays.
The launch is part of the government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and rebuild our health care system through the Plan for Change. The government is also driving forward action to fundamentally reform the NHS dental sector having recently announced the rollout of an extra 700,000 urgent dental appointments nationwide.
Health Minister Stephen Kinnock said:
Colgate-Palmolive’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Noel Wallace said:
The scheme is being rolled out in collaboration with the Department for Education and follows the latest tranche of measures to make government-funded childcare more affordable and accessible to the most disadvantaged families.
Early years providers such as primary schools and nurseries are required to promote good oral health among attending children, and supervised toothbrushing is a way of achieving that aim.
From April, new rules will protect working families from facing high additional charges on top of their entitled childcare hours and providers will begin to benefit from a 45% uplift in early years pupil premium funding, to make sure the most disadvantaged children can access the early years education they need.
Early Education Minister Stephen Morgan said:
Jason Wong, Chief Dental Officer for England, said:
Supervised toothbrushing is a proven, evidence-based health intervention, and is expected to deliver measurable improvements to children’s oral health and reductions in oral health inequalities from between 2 and 3 years after launch.
The rollout is expected to save the NHS millions of pounds that would otherwise be spent on treating dental disease in children, including preventing hospital admissions that cost the NHS around £1,600 per person.
Every £1 spent on supervised toothbrushing is expected to save £3 in avoided treatment costs – amounting to over £34million over the next 5 years that can instead be spent on treating other patients.
Data published last week showed more than 49,000 young people under-19 were admitted to hospital for tooth extraction between in the financial year ending 2024.
Alongside the launch today, the government has confirmed that, following public consultation last year, it is going ahead with the expansion of community water fluoridation across the North-East of England.
Water fluoridation is the process of adding fluoride to public water supplies to prevent tooth decay. Around one in 10 people in England currently have fluoride added to their drinking water supplies.
The findings of all health monitoring reports since 2014 consistently show that water fluoridation is an effective and safe public health measure to reduce the prevalence and severity of tooth decay and reduce dental health inequalities.
The expansion of water fluoridation in the North-East is expected to reach an additional 1.6 million people and reduce the number of young children admitted to hospital for the removal of decayed teeth.
Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board said:
Jason Elsom, Chief Executive of children’s charity Parentkind said:
Dr Urshla Devalia, spokesperson for the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry, said:
Anna Gardiner, Deputy Director - Health & Wellbeing at the National Children’s Bureau, said:
June O’Sullivan OBE, CEO, London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), says:
Notes to Editors