Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made in expanding the supervised tooth-brushing schemes for young children in England.

The supervised toothbrushing programme will reach up to 600,000 children living in the most deprived areas of England, supported by £11 million in 2025/26, with a further £10.5 million consolidated into the Public Health Grant in 2026/27. In the first year of the programme, four million free toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste have been donated to local authorities through our partnership between the Government and Colgate-Palmolive.

An early phase evaluation is underway to understand how the programme is being delivered, including the number of schools and nurseries participating and the number of children attending these settings. Further information is available at the following link:

https://phirst.nihr.ac.uk/evaluations/national_supervised_toothbrushing_programme/

The National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Public Health Research Programme will also evaluate effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/evaluation-national-targeted-supervised-toothbrushing-programme-england/2025435?token=3ed518253355e77237e0cedf06584afcc8fbbb111251ef24c7315baf7c62502e