Efforts to help North Wales children brush up on their dental hygiene commended in national report

A program encouraging children to brush up on their dental hygiene has been commended in a national report.

The Designed to Smile programme, which runs across Wales, provides oral hygiene tuition to young children, encouraging them to establish good dental health habits from an early age.

Across North Wales more than 400 pre-school and primary school settings, including 176 schools, take part in the programme.

The report, published in July by Public Health Wales, states that proportion of five year old children with poor dental health in Wales is falling.

The report details a reduction in the proportion of children with tooth decay between 2007-08 (47.6%) and 2015-16 (34.2%).

Marian Jones, Dental Health Promotion Manager for Designed to Smile North Wales said:

“We are really proud of the Designed to Smile team and other health care professionals for all their hard effort in the delivery and maintenance of the programme.

We are also indebted to the schools, playschools and nursery settings in the implementation of the programme on a daily basis.

The report indicates that the daily Designed to Smile tooth brushing and twice yearly Fluoride Varnish application programme works in the prevention of tooth decay.

The daily tooth brushing not only establishes habits from an early age but the home packs provided also encourages home brushing which is sometimes practiced inconsistently or not at all.”