[Report 1960] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cheshire County Council.

  • Cheshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cheshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/44 (page 8)
    Since all dental treatment for children, whether carried out in clinics, hospitals, or private practice, is free, the public attitude to strict adherence to dental appointments is, in far too many cases, casual, and valuable time is wasted by broken appointments. It must be admitted that bad weather, sickness, or some other priority demand on the child’s available time are reasonable excuses, but the majority of broken appointments do not fall under these headings, and, as in the case of acceptance of dental treatment, the main offenders are senior children who appear, these days, to decide their own course of action. This problem is also noticed in private practice and hospitals. It is perhaps interesting to note that a Cheshire Dental Officer, attending an anaes- thetic course in London at the Eastman Clinic, reported on his return, that individual members of the course were not able to complete the number of practical cases proposed because there were too many broken appointments. The overall dental condition of the school children in Cheshire is fair. It is estimated that not more than two to three per cent of the children inspected show no signs of having received dental treatment at all. No area in the County is without its share of available manpower. Despite the fact that with our present staff we can only compete with a proportion of the children in our care within the year, this is compensated for by the demand of certain groups for private treatment. This demand can be appreciated for the following main reasons:— (a) The School Dental Officer inspects a School on the average about once in eighteen months. The private practitioner may inspect and treat a child three times a year. (b) A parent may find that a private practitioner is geographically more conveniently situated than a clinic, and in these days, when children of the eleven plus group travel long distances from their homes to their new schools, parents who prefer to be present during their children’s course of treatment tend to select their own local private dental surgeon and make appointments coinciding with their own. (c) A social attitude of mind becomes apparent in senior children, especially those attending a Grammar School. Visits to a private practitioner are considered more in keeping with their new status, and one frequently hears the remark made in a superior manner, “I have my own private dentist now”. (d) A continuity of treatment can be guaranteed by the same dental surgeon no matter what changes occur in the transferance of the child to new schools, or the change of dental officers in clinics. There is no doubt that the public generally are becoming more dentallv minded and are prepared to seek and accept dental treatment