Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will (a) make it her policy to introduce mandatory dental checks for children under 11 in educational settings and (b) make an estimate of the cost of such checks.

National Health Service dental treatment for children is free if you are under 18. Dental access for children has increased since the end of the pandemic. 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023 which compares to 3.6 million children seen during the 12 months up to 31 December 2020. No assessments have been made on the cost of mandatory dental checks for children under 11 in educational settings.

NHS England is leading on the next stage of dental contract reform to address the challenges facing the delivery of NHS dentistry and to improve oral health outcomes. The changes announced by NHS England on 19 July 2022 include improving care to high needs patients, supporting practices to deliver more NHS care, and improving information for patients. The next steps in reform will consider what more can be done to move to a preventative approach and an overall improvement of the nation’s oral health.

The Department has published a toolkit to support the commissioning of supervised tooth brushing programmes in early years settings and schools with several local authorities already having schemes in place, funded via the Public Health Grant.