Tackling childhood tooth decay in Liverpool

National World - LocalTV

Oral health in Liverpool is “not in a good situation” with supervised teeth brushing sessions being delivered in schools across the city to improve outcomes for children. With nearly half of five-year-olds across Liverpool reported to have had “visually obvious dental decay” a range of measures have been rolled out to improve the health of children city wide.

Transcript

00:01Oral health in Liverpool is not in a good situation according to Professor Matt Ashton, Director of Public Health.

00:08With nearly half of five-year-olds across Liverpool reported to have had visually obvious dental decay,

00:13a range of measures have been rolled out to improve the health of children citywide,

00:17including supervised teeth brushing sessions being delivered in schools.

00:21According to figures released by Liverpool Council since 2019,

00:24there's been a 37% increase in obvious dental decay for children.

00:28According to a dental epidemiology survey carried out by Public Health England last year,

00:32a fifth of year six children in the city also had visually obvious dental decay.

00:37This is higher than the national and northwest average.

00:39Tooth extraction is still the most common hospital procedure in five to nine-year-olds.

00:43Almost nine out of ten hospital tooth extractions among children up to age five are due to preventable tooth decay.

00:50Such was the issue facing the city's dental health that caused Prime Minister Keir Starmer

00:54to make it a central pillar of his health policy when visiting Alder Hey earlier this year.

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