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complete answer can be found until national scales of pay for dental officers compare
more favourably with other branches of the dental profession. In a similar way the
national scales of pay for dental surgery assistants makes their recruitment by the
service very difficult.
Inspection
The only school dental inspections carried out in the borough prior to the last
quarter of 1966 were for children on their initial entry into school. The annual
inspection of the rest of the school children was discontinued in 1965 under the
London County Council scheme whereby parents were sent a form giving them the opportunity
of taking their children to a clinic for regular examination and treatment,
if they so desired.
Following the Inner London Education Authority's review of the School Dental
Service, and after consultation with the Principal School Dental Officers of the other
inner London Boroughs, a revised scheme to meet the practical and statutory demands of
the service for the reintroduction of full school dental inspections was drawn up
and school dental inspections recommenced in October.
A substantial number of pupils should receive routine inspections in 1967 with
the target of at least an annual inspection for all children be reached eventually.
Local modifications to the basic procedure common to all the Inner London Boroughs
has allowed for a method of recording to be instituted which gives an assessment of
the oral health of each child and brief details of treatment required. This assessment
will make it possible when checking the child's dental health at subsequent
yearly intervals to determine whether treatment has been sought and whether oral
health has improved or deteriorated and appropriate action being taken. In addition
to this, the "score" for each child is recorded with his age group in each school,
thus making it possible to compare the average state of oral health of one school with
another in all age groups. An analysis of the results of this system will be published
next year.
The treatment provided in the clinics is of an overwhelmingly conservative
nature. During 1966, 10,406 fillings were completed, 6,295 in permanent teeth and
4,113 in temporary teeth, whilst extractions were 236 permanent teeth and 922 temporary
teeth. The overall ratio of permanent teeth filled to permanent teeth extracted
was 26.6: 1 and temporary teeth filled to temporary teeth extracted was 4.4: 1.
As figures are not available showing extractions carried out during orthodontic
treatment and many of these will have been included in the totals, the ratios may,
in fact, be more satisfactory. However, extractions under general anaesthesia
referred to The London Hospital Dental Institute are also not recorded and consequently
accurate conclusions cannot be made. Compared with the national average for
fillings to extractions ratios of 5.3: 1 (permanent) and 0.6: 1 (temporary) the
borough's figures prove that the pattern of conservative dentistry for children is
firmly established.
87.