To think schools could do dental checks?

[cheminotte]

Just reading that poor dental health is linked to poverty and how many families struggle to find an NHS dentist.
Also read an article earlier this year about a boy in America who died of teeth decay as the infection spread. And recently heard that tooth decay is linked to heart disease.
Could schools do a dental check in reception like they do an eyesight and hearing test?

My sons long sightedness wouldn't have been picked up without that check in reception.

It would have if you regularly took him to the opticians.

I think 6 month dental checks would definitely be a good thing. Most parents will be scheduling in checks themselves, but unfortunately some won't. It's important that these children get the level of dental care they are entitled to.

Sure. Which service would you like to cut, or which tax would you raise, to provide it?

Dental care is free to children. So the cost would only be administrative in changing the venue for access. Then you just set the cost of that against the savings made by moving from remedial treatment to preventative measures and the savings made in A & E when desperate parents arrive with children in agony and no dental care available to them.

We had school dentist checks and Nitty Nora come round at primary school.

Most parents will be scheduling in checks themselves, but unfortunately some won't. It's important that these children get the level of dental care they are entitled to.

How much state involvement do you want before we say 'actually, these people aren't effective parents and the state needs to take over full time'?

Scotland is great to be fair.. bang on top of Dental issues.. in my region anyway... I'd love the NIT NURSE to discreetly return...

If you are using an NHS dentist the State is involved in any case. Being a parent and phoning them up to arrange an appointment is surely only a gesture that you are operating independently of the nanny state. Accessing the service at school would help children from chaotic families though.

Parents should do it.

For the parents who CBA then SS, school/family support workers should be involved anyway and this should be on the list of things they take care of.

How much state involvement do you want before we say 'actually, these people aren't effective parents and the state needs to take over full time'?

I get what you're saying, but I think there are lots of good parents who drop the ball on various things and dental healthcare is one of them. A mother in my child's class hadn't taken her child for an eye check for 18 months and in that time his eyesight had gone from not needing glasses to needing to wear them full time. I certainly wouldn't suggest she needs to have her children removed from her, but a school based eye check would have picked that up.

Hmm, there are many nhs dentists here, but dental health in the area is still very poor. It’s not the lack of dental care that’s the issue, it’s poor dental hygiene and poor diet. I’ve had cause to visit a paediatric dental unit. It was filled with tiny children with rotten teeth.

I don’t really know what the solution is.

Why are some parents so absorbed in beinging completely absolved of all parental responsibility?

"My son's long sightedness wouldn't have been picked up without that check in reception."

Unless of course, you'd taken interest in him as a parent!

Another thing people want schools to do instead of parents!

^^ This.

Parenting means doing all the shit bits too like ensuring dentist visits. Why are schools having to take on parental responsibility?? Kids are only there 6 hours a day 5 days a week for 40 weeks - so parents should actually, you know, be a parent the rest of the time and take care of this.

Had one at my primary school once a year. I remember the big bucket of used instruments!

They used to do it. I remember having mine checked at school less than 20yrs ago.

No. Schools are for education NOT healthcare.

The problem is the lack of funding for nhs dentists. I'm in Scotland now where it's well funded and an excellent service

But I used to live somewhere where there were NO nhs dentists in the entire county! Every time ONE spot opened up in one of the nhs dentist surgeries across the county border there were queues around the block and it made the news.

There are still several parts of England where there is majorly insufficient provision of nhs dentist slots.

I don't know about Northern Ireland but I know in Scotland much better and from this thread it seems it is in Wales too.

Schools have enough to do. And they're doing it on a shoestring, I've lots of teacher/TA friends who are using their own money to take basic materials in - pencils, notebooks etc

This is what happens when cuts are made to the nhs.

Mine had this all the way through primary. Youngest is now in year 9 so not that long ago.

Don't they do it anymore?

I'd rather see the availability and quality of NHS dentristry restored. Since Blair's government introduced contracts that pretty much screw over NHS dentists it's unsurprisingly gone down the shitter. My feeling is that most of the dentists still offering NHS treatment either use it as marketing for their private treatments and lie about what is and isn't available on the NHS, or are too crap as dentists to 'make it' going private and provide rushed substandard NHS treatment.

Isn't dental treatment free on the NHS for under 19s anyway? Shouldn't it be up to the parents to register and take them to their appointments. It might seem like a good idea but how would it be funded, parents should care enough about their childs health to bother to take them to the dentist.

My parents both worked long hours but they still ensured they got us to our dental check ups.

I thought schools were for educating children, not taking on what should be parental responsibilities. Pretty soon you will just dump your children in school aged 5 and collect them at the end of sixth form.

Schools are there to provide an education.
Parents need to be parents and step up to responsibilities such as going to the dentist.

Doing away with the 'nit nurse' just ended up pushing it all back to the parents. at least the nurse could do a letter and recommend things to use ( they used to give the lotion away free at our school too) but , that cost money of course, so was stopped. I agree that the state can only do so much for parents and children, but stopping a lot of services just makes things worse I think. Its okay if the parents are proactive and willing to do loads for their kids , but not all children have parents like that and just increases more social problems.

I'm sure I had a school check at some point.

DM is phobic about dentists so after moving house at primary school, she didn't rush to sign us up at a new practice... halfway through secondary school one of my teeth broke, it was still ages before she actually registered with a practice. She was a great parent in most other aspects, she just had a whopping blind spot for this particular aspect of health.

Some parents do fall short. Schools and the state can help to reduce the inequalities that arise and can disadvantage their children as a result. Sometimes parents need a third party to bring their attention to an issue that they may have been unaware of.

I'd rather there was intervention that stopped a child having a mouth of rotten teeth than just tutting that the parents should have been more responsible. Schools are also an efficient and effective way of targeting the majority of an age group hence being used for various vaccines.

They used to do this in the 70s in my area
I remember being given little packs of tooth brushes and toothpaste

They used to!