Dental neglect: Children falling through the cracks in siloed health service

11 May 2018
Volume 31 · Issue 6

The BDA has renewed its call for a joined-up strategy on children’s oral health, as new research reveals that GPs are not given the time or training to spot the tell-tale signs of dental neglect.

The study, published in the British Dental Journal, surveyed all GPs in the Isle of Wight about their awareness and perceptions of dental health care in the identification of abuse. Among these family doctors, usually the first point of contact with the NHS, the majority had never liaised with a dentist. 96 per cent of respondents had never received any formal dental training and some did not perceive dental health to be important. Only five GPs mentioned a link between a lack of dental registration and childhood neglect and no GPs worked at clinics where child dental registration status was recorded.

Dental neglect is a marker of child neglect. It was defined in 2009 in the UK as, “the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic oral health needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of a child’s oral or general health or development.”The research demonstrates that GPs lack time, training and confidence to identify dental neglect during routine examination of the oropharynx, and lack awareness of dental neglect as a potential marker of wider systemic neglect.

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