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Three Part-Time Dental Officers, (Miss Moran, Mr. Doyle, and Mr. Parkin), resigned during
1967, but were not replaced as it was hoped the appointment of a Senior Dental Officer was
imminent.
Miss Level, Dental Surgery Assistant at St. Dunstan's, retired in May, and Miss Knowles
joined the staff in her place.
Premises and Equipment
The five dental centres in the Borough, i.e. Bagley's Lane, Parsons Green, St. Dunstan's,
Shepherds Bush Road and Westway,have continued in operation during the year, towards the latter
end of which the dormant second surgery at Shepherds Bush Road was brought back into use for the
Dental Auxiliary. These centres were supplemented by the use of one of the Inner London Education Authority mobile surgeries at Kenmont School, as mentioned previously. The value of such
mobile surgeries is undoubtedly proven, and it is to be hoped that the Inner London Education
Authority will be in a position to provide others in the near future; especially as there is an acute
shortage of surgery space in the Borough which will rapidly become more apparent when the annual
school inspection of all pupils is achieved; and will not be relieved until those surgeries provided
for in the Ten-Year Plan are operational.
The existing centres are all other than purpose-built and have limitations and shortcomings.
However, the equipment of all these surgeries has now been replaced or supplemented to bring it
up to acceptable modern standards, the most notable improvements being achieved at Shepherds
Bush Road .
All surgeries now have high speed air turbines, compressors, units and operating lights;
most have aspirators and those centres selected for the continuation of general anaesthetic sessions have new anaesthetic machines.
Postgraduate Studies
The Principal School Dental Officer attended the Annual Conference of the British Dental
Association at Birmingham, and also the Study Course in Administration organised by the Public
Dental Officers' Group of the British Dental Association.
Miss M.E.Stone attended courses in Orthodontics at the Royal Dental Hospital and Univsity College Hospital, the latter course also being attended by Mr. Y.S.Pradhan.
Dental Health Education
A Dental Health Exhibition was staged at 2-6 Fulham Broadway during April and May with
a topical window display featuring Sandie Shaw and "Puppet on a String".
A display was also incorporated in the Hammersmith Show which, as well as featuring one
of the Inner London Education Authority mobile surgeries, carried advance publicity of the impending visit of Pierre the Clown. The Fruit Producers' Council kindly donated 1,000 apples to
support the venture.
Pierre visited selected Infant and Primary Schools in November and talked to over 5,000
children, each of whom received a free apple, apple club badge, and membership certificate of the
apple club. The Principal School Dental Officer made an 8 mm. film loop of Pierre's visit.
Conclusion
It is truly amazing that in this day and age, and with the frontiers of preventive medicine
ever widening, that so much time, money, and effort are still devoted to the organisation of a
reparative service when for many years the Public Health image has been prevention first and foremost. The amount of sugar consumed in this country rises annually without fail, and remains
the highest of the civilised world. New and highly refined carbohydrate foods appear on the market
daily. John J. Hanlon in "Design for Health", 1963, states "That two-thirds of all the food products available to the American housewife did not exist 10 years ago". One cannot help but reflect that we are not far behind.
Dental disease is largely preventable by the simple Public Health measure of the adjustment of the fluoride level in the water supply to its optimum of 1 p.p.m. The safety and efficacy
of this measure is no longer a question for debate, as legion studies have been conducted all
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