Parliamentary report 7 July
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- Published: Monday, 10 July 2017 07:49
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This week the Health Department took oral questions in the House of Commons, with Paula Sherriff asking about reducing childrens’ extractions and an intervention from dentist, Sir Paul Beresford. Questions were also asked about the costs of the recent cyber attack and sugar content of food and drink.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab) asked what steps were being taken to reduce the number of children admitted to hospital for dental surgery.
Replying minister of state, Philip Dunne, said: “Public Health England leads a wide-ranging programme to improve children’s oral health. Its oral health strategy, which was published last year, showed a marked improvement across the country in the proportion of children with no obvious tooth decay—it rose from 69% in 2008 to over 75% in 2015. NHS England is finalising plans for the “Starting Well” programme, which will operate in 13 high-needs areas to improve the oral health of under-fives.”
Paula Sherriff pointed out that no NHS dentists were accepting new patients in her constituency. She continued: “Children in Dewsbury have five times the national average level of tooth decay. I have asked for help on this for two years, but absolutely nothing has been done. Can you tell me why the dental health of children in Dewsbury is so unimportant to this Government?”
The minister replied that NHS England recognised the significant challenges in dentistry in Yorkshire, which was why it ran a pilot scheme from January until the last week of June to improve access to primary care dentistry in the Bradford City, Bradford Districts and North Kirklees CCG areas. He added that the pilot would inform the wider work that the NHS is considering across Yorkshire.
Intervening Sir Paul Beresford said that the answer was early-years prevention. He continued: “A huge campaign, which is making progress, is being led by the chief dental officer, for whom I have considerable admiration. Is the Minister prepared to meet me and the chief dental officer to discuss that progress? In advance of that appointment, will he look at the possibility of providing additional funding from the annual dental clawback?” The minister said he would be ‘delighted to meet Sir Paul to discuss the issues about dentistry that he raised.
Justin Madders the Shadow Minister for Health asked what estimate had been made of the cost to the public purse of the recent cyber attack on the NHS. New junior minister Jackie Doyle-Price said that the identifiable cost of emergency measures put in place to specifically address the NHS ransomware attack on 12 May 2017 was approximately £180,000. These costs were borne by NHS Digital and NHS England from internal budgets. Information relating to any expenditure incurred by individual local NHS trusts or other NHS organisations was not collected centrally.
Steve McCabe Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak asked what assessment had been made of the effect of the Food and Drink Federation's decision not to introduce the Government's 20 per cent optional reduction in sugar content in its members' products by 2020 on the Department's policies to tackle (a) childhood obesity and (b) childhood tooth decay.
Minister Steve Brine replied that there had been no such assessment. He continued Public Health England undertook modelling work to estimate the potential health impact and wider economic benefits of achieving the average population intake recommendation for sugar. This modelling found that achieving this over a 10-year period would result in 4,100 premature deaths and 204,000 cases of dental caries being averted, resulting in a total cost saving to the NHS of £484 million. A detailed assessment of industry’s progress will be published in March 2018.
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