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96
particular, I beg to draw attention again to the following extract
from my annual report of last year :—
" Unfortunately these precepts are, and will be for some
considerable time, impossible to put into practice due to the
great shortage of dental surgeons throughout the country and
the fact that dental surgeons are leaving the service of local
authorities in large and alarming numbers in order to take
advantage of the greatly-enhanced remuneration available in
private practice since ' the appointed day If mothers and
children showed willingness to attend private dental surgeons
for conservative dentistry (fillings, etc.), the new dental
arrangements under the provisions of the National Health
Service Act could be regarded as, in any case, a substitute
for the local authority dental services ; but the evidence so far
available in this area is that they are continuing to rely on the
local authority dental surgeons for inspection and treatment.
Even in the Grammar Schools, where one would expect the
highest proportion of pupils to have their own private dental
practitioners, the number was only 1 per cent, in the case of
boys and 3 per cent, among girls. An additional feature of
the new dental ' set-up ' is that whereas a few mothers have
taken their children to private dentists to have teeth extracted,
they do not attend there for regular inspection and fillings.
" The loss in a young child of unsaveable teeth by
extraction is unnecessary mutilation which can and should .
be avoided, and the only method I know of avoiding it is by
the regular dental inspection and treatment of all children—at
least every six months—from two years of age until they leave
school. The attainment of that ideal requires first of all an
adequate dental staff. It also requires much individual persuasion
and tact on the part of the available staff who conduct
the routine inspections.
" Under the circumstances, I cannot regard the new dental
arrangements, and the alarming drift of local authority dental
surgeons into private practice, as other than a disaster as far
as expectant and nursing mothers and school children are
concerned.
" It is clear that the Government was fully alive to the
exceptional needs of mothers and children when the Act was
framed, and it is unfortunate that the great disparity in the
subsequent remuneration of public and private dental surgeons