The Faculty of Dental Surgery (FDS) at the Royal College of Surgeons of England has welcomed the Government's commitment to include oral health education in its reforms to the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework.

The FDS submitted evidence to the Department for Education earlier this year, calling for a requirement on promoting good oral health to be included as part of its Safeguarding and Welfare reforms.

Child tooth decay represents a major public health issue which has a significant impact on young children's overall health and wellbeing. This in turn leads to difficulty in concentrating and so affects their education. They can experience bullying as a result of the appearance of their teeth, as well as being at an increased risk of disease in their adult teeth. Tooth decay is also the leading cause of hospital admissions amongst five to nine year olds by some distance - there were 25,702 such admissions in 2018-19.

In its evidence, the FDS also repeated its calls for supervised tooth brushing in schools as there is significant evidence, notably from Scotland and Wales, that such initiatives are effective in improving children's oral health. However, the government state that individual settings and schools will be able to determine how the requirement to promote good oral health is met. Last year's Prevention Green Paper announced that the Government will consult on extending the provision of supervised tooth brushing programmes in England.

Mr Matthew Garrett, Dean of the FDS said: 'This new requirement to promote good oral health is fantastic news for children across England. While we would have liked to see supervised tooth brushing schemes mandated, this is a good first step in improving children's oral health.

'During the pandemic, dental services have rightly functioned differently to take the pressure off the NHS and save lives. This has meant that routine check-ups - where dental problems are often first spotted - have been paused, making this commitment to oral health in education settings more important than ever.'