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DENTAL SERVICES
the council's Chief Dental Officer and Principal School Dental Officer reports as
follows:—
Hopes that the expansion effected in the Council's dental services during 1953 would
continue throughout 1954 were not fully realised but the year was one of all-round
slight improvement. Graphs of dental inspections at schools and of treatment sessions
worked (page 120) show some upward trend in the school dental service and this improvement
is also reflected in tables V and VI dealing with the maternity and child welfare
dental service and the dental service in boarding schools and residential establishments.
The improvement was not progressive throughout the period, however, and at the
close of the year the staffing position was only slightly better than in December of the
preceding year. Financial provision had been made and plans prepared for several
additional treatment centres to be equipped and opened but some of these were held in
abeyance owing to lack of staff. Table I gives staffing and sessional figures compared
with the preceding year but does not reveal the disconcerting factor of the frequency
of staff changes. Replacements, however, continued to balance resignations of both
full-time and part-time officers. A number of evening sessions worked by individual
officers as overtime augmented the sessional figures.

Throughout the year, the Council's policy to establish in the school dental service as
soon as possible a ratio of one full-time dental officer for each 3,000 schoolchildren on
the school roll (i.e., 142 full-time dental officers) was pressed forward but, as shown in
the above table, even the interim establishment of 93 was not reached. The ratio
attained throughout the county as a whole was 1 to 5,600 (in December 1953 the figure
was 1 to 6,500) and ranged from 1 to 4,000 in Health Division 4 to 1 to 9,500 in Health
Division 9. It was not possible, therefore, to give a full and comprehensive dental care
programme to all who sought advice at the Council's dental surgeries but the spreadover
policy of former years continued. In the three dental services (school, maternity
and child welfare and boarding schools and other residential establishments) much
useful work continued to be done and results are tabulated under their respective
headings.
School dental service
For another year systematic revisional dental treatment for many children had to be
postponed and some could receive (or desired) only ameliorative treatment. As formerly,
not all defaulters could be followed up. At dental inspections in schools, considerable
numbers of parents continued to express their intention to have private treatment and
it was decided to investigate what proportion did indeed do so, and to attempt to estimate
the volume of children's dental work done elsewhere in addition to the Council's work.
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