00:01A trip to the dentist is one thing, but for some children, tooth decay has become serious
00:06enough to mean treatment in hospital, and the latest figures show the scale of the problem
00:11remains significant.
00:12Processed foods have hidden sugars in them, the drinks that they're now exposed to, fizzy
00:17drinks, juices, how often they're having them. Brushing can often be inconsistent, and there
00:23has been more recently a move away from fluoride toothpaste, and we know fluoride is so important
00:29with preventing decay, and then we have this problem of access, so we're having young children
00:33not coming into the dentist and not seeing us, so we're not educating them enough, and
00:38we know that prevention is better than cure, so by the time we are seeing these young children,
00:42they're in a lot of pain, and there is a very limited amount we can do.
00:45There were 33,976 hospital tooth extraction episodes in under-20s because of tooth decay
00:52in 2024 to 2025. That's up 11% on the previous year.
00:58And among five to nine-year-olds, 86.5% of hospital tooth extraction episodes were because
01:05of decay.
01:06They were so far gone that the only option we had left was a general anaesthetic and
01:10taking these teeth out, and that's quite sad. And what that's showing you is that access
01:14is very poor, and therefore these children are not being seen, and also that the people
01:20looking after them, carers, parents, are perhaps lacking that education as to what they need
01:24to do to help their children not develop these problems.
01:27A recent study found parents identified a range of barriers to protecting their children's
01:32oral health. That included children's behaviour, lack of time, parenting challenges, the dental
01:38system, and a lack of continuing care. Three quarters said they wanted more support with
01:43their child's oral health, and 60% supported oral health programmes in schools and in nurseries.
01:49This is not about blame. This is just about elevating education so that we can help young
01:54people keep their teeth for life. We have to remember that whilst this study was, I think,
02:00focusing a lot on deciduous teeth, you know, you get one set of adult teeth, and that's
02:03meant to provide you for a lifetime. So what we can do is help educate adults and help educate
02:10children. And if we can get there early, then we're going to help children prevent these
02:15problems. So I think it's much less about blame as much as it is about education. And what we need
02:20to do is reach families really early. And certainly in my practice, we do things like children's
02:24days. So we have a hot day just dedicated to children. People can come in. We've got people
02:28educating about oral hygiene, plaque-disposing tablets, because plaque-disposing tablets are very
02:34interesting. A child chews it. It tastes like a sweet, and it shows purple on the teeth, and it shows
02:39them
02:39exactly where they need to brush their teeth. And certainly for my patients, I find that once they can see
02:44that their oral hygiene improves so much. So what we need to do is get everyone early and also educate
02:50about diet, because there's so many hidden sugars, especially in processed foods. It's not about
02:57eliminating these things. It's about education, because we're not going to say don't have these
03:00things. That's just not realistic. We want everyone to live and have a great life. But if you can have
03:05three meals, two snacks, you can have what you want in that time. But in between, keep it to water,
03:10avoid that snacking mentality. You can help protect a child's teeth.
03:14The advice is to brush before breakfast. That removes the plaque and bacteria which build up
03:19overnight and leaves fluoride on the teeth.
03:21So always before breakfast, if possible. I do know that some patients just have it in their head.
03:27They want to brush after eating. If you want to do that, you can do it. But you need to
03:32leave it a
03:33good 30 to 60 minutes to allow your mouth to neutralise and for things to go back to normal.
03:38If you go on straight away, straight after you've eaten, your enamel actually on the outside is a
03:43little bit softer and you could actually be wearing away at your teeth and causing more problems.
03:46Access is a major part of the picture. The latest NHS dental statistics show 7.17 million children,
03:5460% of the child population in England, had been seen by an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months.
04:01And there's a stark deprivation gap. Children and young people in the most deprived communities
04:05have just over three times the rate of decay-related hospital extractions compared with those in the
04:11most affluent. I think that there are lots of questions here. And I think that the UK has a
04:18way to go. And that's my honest stance on it. I think there are plenty of us out there really
04:22wanting to drive this forward. And like I said, at our practice, we're really pushing that forward
04:27right now. But I think the government needs to invest more in oral health education, getting us
04:32out there early, getting us into schools. So we make this part of the curriculum because this is a
04:37lifelong thing and it's part of general health. Oral health is part of general health. If you can eat
04:43and drink and speak properly, it affects your whole future. So I think there's an overall question here
04:47about investment and education rather than just focusing on treatment. By the time that child has
04:53got decay, we've left it too long. We need to get there earlier. So while brushing, diet and everyday
04:58routines can all help prevent tooth decay, the question goes beyond whether children are learning the
05:03right habits. It's whether families are getting enough support and enough opportunity for problems
05:08to be prevented or treated before a child ends up in hospital.
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