Lack of school staff and 'gatekeeper' receptionists among challenges to expanding children's toothbrushing scheme, meeting told
Some Shropshire school receptionists are posing a ‘real challenge’ for health employees who want to show young children how to properly brush their teeth, a meeting heard.
Telford & Wrekin Council’s health and wellbeing board welcomed the news that the borough has received a grant of £50,984 to expand the Brilliant Brushers scheme.
But they also heard of children as young as five having up to 13 rotten teeth extracted and issues experienced while trying to expand the progamme.
Brilliant Brushers is designed for children aged three to five years in targeted early years settings, including day nurseries and mainstream schools. It is also available for ages three and above in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) schools.
The scheme provides comprehensive staff training, regular monitoring and support and essential toothbrushing resources, enabling staff to supervise daily toothbrushing in a “safe, effective, and fun way”.
Jill Allbutt, who leads the Healthy Smile Team at the Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (Shropcom), told the meeting of the health and wellbeing board on Thursday (November 27) of the “multi-factoral” issues preventing them from helping even more children with the Brilliant Brushers programme.
“It can be that they don’t have the staff,” she said, responding to a question from Councillor Karen Tomlinson (Liberal Democrats, Shawbirch & Dothill).
“It’s in the early years curriculum now so they have a responsibility to do it.
“It can be as simple as we can’t get through to the staff.
“There is a very, very good gatekeeper in a lot of schools called the receptionist.”
She added that receptionists will say “I can’t possibly allow my staff and my school to do supervised toothbrushing, they are already busy enough”.
She said: “And honestly that’s a real challenge and we try everything we can.”
The team also has problems when staff leave and their replacements have “made their mind up not to do it”.
The Shropcom team leader added that there can also be a “misunderstanding and a misconception” when some people think that they should be cleaning their teeth at home.
She said it is “in addition to what goes on at home, not instead of”.
The committee was told that an estimated 27 per cent of Telford and Wrekin five-year-olds examined in 2023-24 had dental decay compared to 21.9 per cent in the West Midlands and an England average of 22.4 per cent.
The committee welcomed the receipt of the Government grant money and heard that £50,984 will be used to support the expansion of supervised toothbrushing in schools in deprived areas of the borough and for children with SEND.
