The President of British Society of Paediatric Dentistry (BSPD), Dr Oosh Devalia OBE, wrote an open letter to the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP and James Frith MP as they take up their new ministerial roles that will include children’s dentistry. Below are the key points outlined in BSPD’s letter, which detail the progress made to-date to support children and young people’s oral health, and the priority steps still to be taken.
The British Society of Paediatric Dentistry (BSPD) warmly welcomes you to your new role which includes overseeing dentistry. As the UK’s leading charity advocating for children and young people’s (CYP) oral health, our clinicians and academics are the expert voice of paediatric dentistry and are ready to support you as you take forward national dental reform. At the start of my presidency, I issued the BSPD President’s 2025 Charter, attached in the link for your consideration. Several priority actions have already seen encouraging progress, and we have marked these below:
- DHSC’s supervised toothbrushing programmes in early years and school settings was launched in March 2025
- NHSE in collaboration with BSPD, issued new Clinical Standards supporting consistent, high-quality oral health and dental care for children and young people
- BSPD led the creation of training resources in collaboration with the Institute of Health Visiting, delivered with Mini Mouth Care Matters (available on NHS Learning Hub)
- BSPD created guidance for SEN children and those diagnosed with cancer or congenital heart conditions
- BSPD campaigned, and DHSC supported taxation to cut under 16s’ sugar consumption
- BSPD has ensured that oral health information is available in accessible formats to reach every child
- BSPD is pushing for fundamental reform to the dental contract where the needs of CYP should be explicitly considered.
The Charter also sets out further essential aims: full integration of oral health into wider healthcare settings using Mini Mouth Care Matters to support the Making Every Contact Count (MECC) agenda, expansion of the paediatric dental workforce, creating Child Focused/Friendly Dental Practices, ensuring every child has a dental home (early access to preventively focused dental care, with continuity of care thereafter), enabling effective Managed Clinical Networks, supporting Dental Care Professionals to carry out the treatments they are trained to do and delivering a Dental Check by One before every baby’s first birthday.
These priorities show what is possible when prevention is placed at the centre of policy. However, long term reform is now essential. Many impactful, evidence-backed and cost-efficient interventions remain to be delivered, including population measures such as community water fluoridation.
