Agenda item

Report of Director of Public Health, Care Wellbeing and Learning

Committee received the first monitoring report following last year’s review into children’s oral health in Gateshead.  Four recommendations came out of the review and the Committee were updated on progress in these areas.

The first recommendation was to work collaboratively with all commissioners of oral health services to ensure services are meeting the needs of the population and addressing inequalities. It was noted that progress has been limited in this area although oral health promotion has now been included in the 0-19 specification. The National Dental Epidemiology Programme Survey has been completed however the findings will not be available until 2019.  It was reported that the findings from the 2015 survey have recently been received which has shown low levels of decay across Gateshead, however high levels in the South and Central clusters of Gateshead. It was confirmed that this will be looked at with commissioners and work is underway to refresh the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

The second recommendation from the review was around reviewing oral health promotion work in line with the transfer of responsibility from NHS England as part of the 0-19 public health service review.  It was confirmed that oral health promotion work has been embedded in the new specification from the 0-19 public health nursing service. The key requirements include adopting a Making Every Contact Count approach, this is for all staff working with families to encourage families to attend and record dentist visits.

A further recommendation was to embed oral health promotion across the early help strategy to ensure a life course approach to oral health improvement. It was noted that oral health promotion is a key objective within the development of the early help strategy, which is still in the process of being implemented. The Making Every Contact Count approach will ensure staff from a range of services, for example; YOT, Social Workers, Family Intervention Team, take the opportunity to talk to families about oral health.

The final recommendation was to ensure Making Every Contact Count (MEC) approach incorporates Change 4 Life Programme.  It was noted that there are three new MEC posts within the Public Health Team, focused on mental health, substance misuse and physical activity. In addition there is a Public Health Resource and Information Assistant who will work with the MEC team to ensure they incorporate Change 4 Life programme materials as part of the MEC training programme.  It was reported that the Schools Health and Wellbeing Survey was completed in the last academic year for year 4-6 pupils. A good response was received, out of the 1700 responses; 60% cleaned their teeth twice a day, however 3% did not clean their teeth at all. 54% of respondents had been for a check up and 55% of those had no treatment and 18% had treatment over the last year.

It was questioned whether the use of antibiotics had an effect on young people’s teeth, and whether there was a correlation between the use of antibiotics by children in the central and south areas for other health problems and the higher level of tooth decay.  . It was confirmed that the Public Health team is currently looking at working with North East Commissioning Support around these potential links.

It was queried whether the results of the Dental Health Profile for five year olds was representative of Gateshead due to the small sample number of 175. It was confirmed that this was conducted by Public Health England and the minimum sample size is 250, in this case 292 children were sampled but only 175 parental consents were received. It was acknowledged that this is a snapshot and just an indication of the bigger picture.

It was questioned what Hartlepool are doing differently as it has the lowest rate of decay. It was recognised that these are small sample numbers however officers could look into this further for the next monitoring report.

RESOLVED    -           (i)         That the comments of the Committee on the six

monthly update be noted.

                                    (ii)        That the Committee agreed to receive a further update

in six months time when the recommendations will have been progressed further.