Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to increase public awareness of gum disease and tooth loss.
Local authorities are responsible for assessing the oral health needs of their local population, developing appropriate strategies and commissioning oral health improvement programmes for both gum disease and tooth loss.
In 2017, Public Health England (PHE) published a ‘Guide to a healthy mouth in adults’ which provides a summary of the simple steps that can be taken to protect and improve oral health. In 2018, PHE also published ‘Commissioning Better Oral Health for Vulnerable Older People’ which supports commissioners in improving the oral health of vulnerable older people. Finally, in 2019, PHE published ‘Adult Oral Health- applying All Our Health’, online guidance for healthcare professionals to improve oral health in adults. This guidance is available at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adult-oral-health-applying-all-our-health
The National Health Service website also has information on preventing and treating gum disease. This guidance is available at the following link: