Up to 30,000 children a year are admitted to NHS hospitals across the UK for tooth decay and extraction, new research has revealed.
Researchers at Plymouth's Peninsula Dental School and University College London analysed hospital data from between 1997 and 2006 and found that 470,113 children up to the age of 17 needed hospital treatment during this period.
The findings, published in the British Dental Journal, revealed that over half of all hospital admissions (267,081) were for tooth decay, with 80 per cent resulting in a child having a tooth extracted – usually under general anaesthetic .
Extractions due to tooth decay rose by 66 per cent over the nine-year period, the study found.
Of all hospital admissions, 61,721 children required treatment for embedded and impacted teeth and 41,064 were related to disorders of the way the tooth had developed.
Prof David Moles, who led the study at the Peninsula Dental School, said yearly rises in hospital admissions had come despite rates of tooth decay and infection remaining steady.
The British Dental Journal report highlighted the widening gulf in dental health between social classes by revealing that children from poorer backgrounds were twice as likely to need treatment as those from more affluent families
Experts said the findings highlighted a "major public health issue" and criticised Labour’s policy relating to NHS dentists .
