Parliamentary questions resume after recess
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- Published: Monday, 11 September 2017 07:47
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Steve McCabe the Birmingham Labour MP resumed his campaign to discover more information on NHS dental care after the recess, by asking questions to both the Departments of Health and Local Government. Shadow Health Secretary, Jon Ashworth was told how to find the stats he wanted.
Steve McCabe Labour MP Birmingham Selly Oak asked if the Department of Health would make an assessment of the merits of re-investing money from unused UDAs into a national early intervention programme for tackling child tooth decay.
Steve Brine a junior health minister replied that at the request of Ministers, NHS England is setting up a scheme in 13 high needs areas to improve the oral health of young children.
He continued: “The scheme will be based in dental practices and will have a particular focus on those children who do not currently visit the dentist. The scheme is expected to be launched in the next few months and will be funded from existing dental resources, including unused units of dental activity. Evaluation has been designed in from the start and the learning, once available, will inform the approach going forward.
The minister added that NHS England had advised that the West Midlands scheme was still under consideration following local discussions this month. “The scheme would incentivise dentists to see more children under the age of two. Decisions on the future of the scheme are expected to be taken next month”, he said.
Steve McCabe MP next asked the Department for Communities and Local Government, what plans they had made to co-ordinate local authority programmes for improving children's oral health.
Replying for the Department, junior minister Marcus Jones MP said they had no such plans. He continued: “It is the responsibility of each local authority to determine how best to deliver children’s oral health improvement services for the benefit of their local residents.
Next Jon Ashworth MP, shadow secretary of ststae for health, asked how many and what proportion of children aged five have dental disease in each local authority area of England.
Steve Brine MP, junior health minister, in effect told him to look up the answers humself, as they were in the public domain. He said: “The latest data on the prevalence and severity of dental decay in five year olds was reported in 2015 in The Oral Health Survey of Five Year-Old Children 2014/15. The ‘Lower Tier, Upper Tier Local Authority (LA), PHE Centre and regional results tables 2015’ can be accessed from the survey here:
http://www.nwph.net/dentalhealth/survey-results%205(14_15).aspx.
Within the table, the tabs ‘Upper Tier LAs’ and ‘Lower Tier LAs’ give information on the number of five-year-olds per LA (column D), the number of five-year-olds in that area examined for the survey (column E) and the percentage of those examined with and without tooth decay (columns L and K respectively). An estimate of the number of five-year-old children in the LA with dental decay can be calculated from this information.
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