‘Tragedy’ that a quarter of primary school starters have rotten teeth

♦ Almost one in four children are starting at primary school in England with rotten teeth, statistics show.

Figures from Public Health England (PHE) show that more than 160,000 five-year-olds – or 23.3 per cent – had dental decay when they started school.

PHE’S National Dental Epidemiology Programme for England showed that, while there had been improvements in the proportion of youngsters with signs of decay, 164,000 new primary school pupils still had rotten teeth.

Around 17,000 of these youngsters had to have decayed teeth removed.

Figures from 2017 showed that in Tower Hamlets, in east London, 7.2 per cent of five-year-olds had undergone tooth extraction. The average was 2.4 per cent, dropping to 1.3 per cent in the east of England.

However, there were improvements – in 2008, 69.1 per cent of five-yearolds showed no obvious signs of dental decay, rising to 76.7 per cent in 2017.

Mick Armstrong, chairman of the British Dental Association, said: “It’s a tragedy that a child’s oral health is still determined by postcode and their parents’ incomes. Sadly, while cavities are almost wholly preventable, official indifference means this inequality gap shows little sign of narrowing.”