A national supervised toothbrushing campaign has been launched in a bid to “revive” the country’s oral health. The programme, in which children are encouraged to brush their teeth with a fluoride toothpaste, will take place in early years settings, including nurseries and schools. Stephen Kinnock said it was shocking that a third of five-year-olds in the most deprived areas had experienced tooth decay, which he noted could have a lifelong impact on their health. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Today we're rolling out supervised tooth brushing for three to five-year-olds in deprived communities in our country.
00:07The tragic reality is that the biggest cause of five to nine-year-olds being taken to hospital is to have their rotten teeth removed.
00:15That is something that we have to stop. We have to turn that around.
00:19This scheme is about helping young children to get into the habit of brushing their teeth.
00:26It is absolutely something that's being done in partnership with early years settings and with parents.
00:32Talking to the parents of some of the children that have had the supervised tooth brushing today,
00:38they've really appreciated the fact that the kids are getting into supervised tooth brushing in class and they're bringing all that good stuff home.
00:46So it's very much about parents and kids and the early years setting and the schools and nurseries working together.
00:53So I think it's much more about partnership than about anybody coming in and saying,
00:58you must do it this way or you must do it that way.
01:01But let's also recognise that the fact that so many young people are having to go into hospital
01:08because their teeth are in such a terrible state is costing the NHS millions and millions of pounds every year.
01:15And that is a situation that we should all be concerned about.
01:18And it's the government's duty to absolutely support and intervene to ensure that we get health back on track,
01:27oral health back on track and also we do the best we possibly can for the taxpayer.