View report page

102
(4) Public elementary school children found to be suffering from dental defects and who are
not necessitous under the scale adopted by the Committee may be treated on payment
as set out in this memorandum, provided that a postcard has not been received from a
private dental practitioner, stating that he is undertaking the treatment of the case.
Criticisms and Suggestions Offered by the Board of Education in their Letter to the
Authority, dated 1st October, 1924.
" I am therefore to suggest that the Authority should reconsider their dental
arrangements, and should adopt a progressive scheme on the lines indicated in the report for 1921,
concentrating their activity in the first instance on as many age groups, beginning from the age of 5,
as can be dealt with by the staff, inspecting a new 5 year old group annually as it matures, and reinspecting
the children in the groups previously examined and giving supplementary treatment
where necessary in any event Board cannot regard it as satisfactory
that the dentists should spend so much of their time in the dental inspection of large numbers
of children who remain untreated, and I am therefore to ask for an assurance that a due proportion
may be observed in the time devoted to inspection and treatment respectively and that larger numbers
of children should not be inspected than are likely to be dealt with, either by private dentists or at
dental treatment sessions conducted in the Authority's Clinics."
Conditions of a Satisfactory Dental Scheme.
(Sir George Newman, Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education
for the year 1921.)
Sir George Newman, in this report, lays down the following conditions (among others) for a
satisfactory dental scheme.
1. " Attention should, be concentrated in the first instance on the group of children from five to seven
years of age. This is essential for the following reasons :—
(a) To anticipate and prevent the encroachment of dental caries it is advisable to inspect the
children at as early an age as possible.
(b) To begin early is to enhance the chances of saving teeth.
(c) To inspect and treat early is to make adequate provision for the ' critical age,' which is,
of course, the time of the emergence of the permanent teeth.
2. After the first year the dental scheme should provide for the examination or re-examination
of all children in the age groups previously inspected by the dentist, and for such treatment or supplementary
treatment as may be found necessary. In this way it is expected that the whole of the
children of elementary school age will eventually be brought under adequate dental inspection and
treatment, and enabled to leave school with healthy dentures.
The annual re-inspection of children is as important as the inspection and treatment of new
cases ; if this work is allowed to get seriously into arrears the benefit of the conservative work already
done will be largely nullified.
3. The treatment should be conservative in character, and accordingly the bulk of the treatment
work should be by filling rather than by extraction. Conservative dentistry includes also preventive
measures, such extraction work as contributes to the preservation of the dentition as a whole, and
simple mechanical devices necessary to regulate the teeth.
4. With the development of the scheme it will, of course, be necessary for local Education
Authorities to review their provision in order to secure that the dental staff is adequate to meet the
extension of their duties.
The aim of the School Dental Service should be to secure that as many children as possible
shall leave school free from dental disease and trained in the care of the teeth.
5. So long as the supply of dentists is limited, their services should be confined to carrying
out the scheme of conservative treatment; only in exceptionally urgent cases should children falling
outside the groups included in the scheme be treated. As the scheme develops in the course of natural
extension these cases will tend to disappear. Above all, no dental scheme can be considered satisfactory
which fails to approach the problem from a preventive standpoint."
Results Obtained During Year of Operation of Scheme of October, 1924.