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(6) "Priority Dental Service" is designed to give special priority to mothers
and children by Local Health and Education Authorities—
(а) for Expectant and Nursing Mothers and pre-school children by
virtue of Section 22 of the National Health Service Act, 1946;
(b) for School Children by virtue of Education Act, 1944.
This means that everyone is now entitled to free dental treatment. The only
limiting factor is the availability of dentists. There is, however, a tripod of
administrative responsibility under two Ministries.
In the county of London the three legs of the tripod are represented by the
London County Council Priority Dental Services.
London Executive Council General Dental Services.
Metropolitan Regional Hospital Hospital Dental Services including
Boards (4) and Boards of Governors dental care of the tuberculous.
of Teaching Hospitals (26).
The London County Council, therefore, by virtue of Section 22 of the Act is now
responsible for the Priority Dental Services in the county and has the duty to make
provision for the adequate dental care of expectant and nursing mothers and preschool
children, and by virtue of the Education Act, 1944, the Council retains
responsibility for the dental examination and treatment of school children in the
county.
The Council's Hospital Dental Service was transferred to the Ministry of Health's
control on 5th July, 1948, when sixty equipped dental surgeries in hospitals and the
equivalent of nineteen full-time dental surgeons passed from the Council's control to
that of Regional Hospital Boards or Boards of Governors of Teaching Hospitals.
These premises and officers were replaced, to some extent, by the transfer to the
Council from the twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs and the City of London of the
dental services provided, up to then, by them.
These services were unevenly developed and were complicated by the fact that
six boroughs provided not only dental services under their maternity and child
welfare schemes but, under the Public Health (London) Act, a dental service for the
general public.
Two full-time dentists and thirty-five part-time officers (equivalent to an
additional six full time units) were transferred. Most of the dental treatment which
had been provided in the boroughs was for expectant and nursing mothers but a
proportion was for the tuberculous.
The unification of these several Maternity and Child Welfare dental schemes
received attention in the latter half of the year but it will be some time before the
different dental functions can be disentangled and passed to the appropriate
Authority under the Act.
It has therefore been necessary for the Council to act in the capacity of "agent"
for other authorities, with regard to
(a) some provision of dental care of the tuberculous at twelve dental
treatment centres on behalf of the Regional Hospital Boards;
(b) continuance of General Dental Service in the boroughs of Bermondsey,
Shoreditch, Finsbury, Hackney, Stoke Newington and Poplar on behalf of the
London Executive Council (after July 5th these technically became Health
Centres);
and also to
(c) the processing of artificial dentures at the Council's Central Dental
Laboratory, on behalf of the Regional Hospital Boards,