School leaders have accused Labour of “window dressing” after Keir Starmer pledged to introduce supervised toothbrushing for young children in England’s primary schools.
While the policy has long been supported by the dentistry profession as a way of curbing decay, headteachers said it was not appropriate for their staff to check whether pupils had cleaned their teeth.
The Labour leader announced the pledge as part of a “rescue plan for NHS dentistry” that would include funding an extra 700,000 appointments for urgent dental treatments, such as fillings or root canals.
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “This week we have seen guidance on mobile phones from government and a new dentistry duty from the opposition. This is not the immediate response needed to solve the mounting crises in school. We need to see greater ambition in the short, medium and long term.
“We have serious reservations about how such a policy could even work. It is not the role of teachers to be making sure children brush their teeth each day.
“Schools already play a role in teaching children about the importance of looking after their teeth through the curriculum, but there has to be a limit in terms of what we can expect them to do.
“We should demand more than window dressing from all of our politicians.”
Dr Charlotte Eckhardt, the dean of the faculty of dental surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “We strongly support supervised toothbrushing in schools and nurseries – this is now urgent.
“We know that children in deprived areas are at greater risk of poor oral health. By establishing supervised toothbrushing in school settings, we can directly improve children’s oral health and influence their toothbrushing routine in the home.”
The British Dental Association, which represents the profession, said it was encouraged by Labour’s proposal, given ministerial inaction over introducing a similar scheme.
“The government has never taken forward pledges to consult on rollout of supervised brushing, despite its own modelling showing it could pay for itself, with £3.06 saved for every £1 spent in the medium term,” the association said.
The BDA also called for fluoride to be added to more domestic water supplies, arguing: “If all five-year-olds in England drank fluoridated water we would see much less tooth decay – 17% less in wealthy areas and 28% less in the most-deprived areas.”
Labour’s dentistry plan would include incentives for newly qualified dentists to work in areas with few or no NHS dentists, to reduce the number of “dental deserts”, as well as reforming contracts to enable dentists to spend more time treating NHS patients.
Starmer said: “People are finding it impossible to get an NHS dentist when they need one, with appalling consequences. Horror stories of DIY dentistry are too frequent. My Labour government will not stand for millions of people being denied basic healthcare.”
