I thank my hon. Friend for her question, which gives me the opportunity to say that oral health in England is the best since records began. The proportion of 12-year-old children with decayed teeth fell from 93 per cent. in 1973 to 38 per cent. in 2003. Over a similar period the number, of adults with no natural teeth fell from 38 per cent. to 11 per cent. of the adult population.
I warmly welcome my hon. Friend to her new role, which is richly deserved. Does she recognise the beneficial effects of fluoridated water to dental health, given the stark contrast between the good dental health of children in the fluoridated Birmingham area and that of those in the Manchester area, which is not fluoridated? What will she do to encourage strategic health authorities to promote fluoridation in areas where tooth decay among children is unacceptably high? After 2008, for the very first time, the British Fluoridation Society will no longer benefit from central funding. I am concerned that strategic health authorities are falling behind—
Order. I think that the Minister will manage a reply.
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I agree that fluoridation of water offers the best prospect of reducing inequalities in oral health. That is why we have amended relevant legislation to give local communities a real choice on whether to have fluoridated water. I congratulate her on becoming known as a champion by the British Fluoridation Society, and for the work that it has done. Strategic health authorities will have guidance from our Department, but the consultation will remain local. I am pleased to say that funding has been acquired until the point at which we look at the issue again, but I assure her that we shall monitor the situation carefully.
Oral hygiene in England is of the highest standard, partly because of the advances of medical science. However, does the Minister agree that unless we can find a way of reviving the provision of dental hygiene on the national health service—in a county such as Wiltshire, it is virtually non-existent—those high standards of oral health will inevitably decline?
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the work he has done in the area of dental care. Oral hygiene is paramount to the prevention of decay, and we have continued to train and re-train technologists and dental hygienists, and to encourage local PCTs to get involved in the commissioning of such work.
I welcome my hon. Friend to her new role. I am sure that she agrees that better dental health would be helped by better NHS provision, particularly in our poorer communities. I recently met a constituent who is training to be a dentist, and wishes to be an NHS dentist, but the practice she is placed with, which does NHS work, will take her on only if she solely does private work. That is because the NHS now pays for procedure, and newly qualified dentists take too long to do them. Is it not time that the Department considered requiring newly trained dentists to spend part of their career in the NHS? Otherwise, what is the point of the taxpayer paying to increase the number of training places?
My hon. Friend raises a good point. The contract that has been put in place recently is working well, but there is always room to consider everything and make progress, so I am very interested in his remarks.
The Minister’s predecessor, along with Teignbridge district council, the Teignbridge primary care trust, myself and a local dentist, helped to provide good quality dental care for anyone in Teignbridge who wanted it. I congratulate her predecessor’s work for the Department on that. The new Devon primary care trust, however, is telling dentists in Teignbridge that they have to take new patients from anywhere in the county, which will undo all the good work of her predecessor. Will she consider that issue and find a way to protect the services provided by the dentists of Teignbridge to local residents?
I suggest that as the local Member of Parliament, the hon. Gentleman engage in a serious conversation with the PCT and that a consultation is carried out with the local community. I am sure that that would help them to decide their future.