Kid’s Oral Health Improvement

Children’s oral health in Wales has experienced the most significant improvement since records began, the latest survey of five-year-olds shows.

Dental decay has reduced by 12% in five-year-olds since 2008 and there has been a reduction in the average number of teeth affected when children have tooth decay.

The Welsh Government’s flagship scheme Designed to Smile has helped to improve children’s oral health by working with children under six in some of Wales’ most disadvantaged areas.

Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford said:

“These results show the most significant and sustained improvement in tackling dental decay since records began in the 1980s.

“Importantly, levels of dental disease are reducing across all social groups – we are closing the dental health gap between the poorest and the most advantaged children in Wales.

“Decay is generally expected to either rise or show little improvement during periods of financial downturn, which makes this improvement all the more impressive.

“This is in part thanks to the success of Designed to Smile. Helping the youngest children in Wales to look after their teeth is a prudent approach which will pay off in the long term. Seven years after the launch of Designed to Smile, children and young people in Wales are seeing the benefits.

”I want to thank all the NHS and school staff who have worked to make Designed to Smile a success. I also want to thank our recently-retired chief dental officer David Thomas for his leadership and for his expert professional advice. I wish him a happy and healthy retirement.”

Designed to Smile provides supervised tooth brushing and fluoride varnish programmes for young children in school and nursery, helping them to keep their teeth healthy as they grow older.

Dental health professionals can provide a fissure sealant programme to older children who may need it, as well as advice about how to look after their teeth to prevent problems later on.

Currently 91,290 children in 1,439 schools and nurseries are taking part in the supervised element of Designed to Smile, which represents 59.2% of all children from pre-school to year two in Wales.