More than half the children in Swindon have not seen a dentist, according to surprising figures presented to councillors.

But even the Swindon access rate for children of 47.6 per cent in June last year is higher than that of England as a whole at 46.9 per cent.

The figures were in a report to members of the council’s adults’ health care and housing overview and scrutiny committee made by Jo Lawton, the commissioner for NHS dentistry at NHS England.

Following an assessment of the state of Swindon’s teeth, which was not complimentary, by the council’s own public health officers, Ms Lawton was talking about the challenges of providing dental care in Swindon - with many people struggling to find NHS dentists.

And it was clear that many of the councillors on the committee were shocked at the low rate of both adults and children seeing a dentist.

Councillor Ray Ballman said: “If less than half of children are able to see a dentist shouldn’t we be sending dentists into school. That’s what used to happen years ago.

“If children aren’t getting treatment, they are just storing up problems for later years and that might include wider health problems.”

Ms Lawton said: “That’s what used to happen with community dentistry. It’s worth consideration – but there is an issue of consent. If parents aren’t sending their children to a dentist, you’ll still need to get consent from them for that to happen in school.”

She added: “And if they are then being screened in schools and that shows they need a course of treatment there’s the challenge of accessing that treatment outside of school.”

The representative of Healthwatch, Amritpal Kaur, added that voluntary sector organisations which had been providing toothbrushes and toothpaste to schools pre-Covid-19 pandemic were now struggling to deliver such items.

Another councillor, Russell Holland, picked up the theme of dentistry in schools.

Having asked the size of the NHS dentistry budget for Swindon and been told it is £11.8m he said: "There’s a lot of space in that budget. Someone could be commissioned to go into schools.”

Discussing NHS dentistry in general, Coun Holland seemed to take inspiration from 1990s comedy drama Northern Exposure when he suggested the General Dental Council could require new dentists in Swindon to take a certain proportion of NHS patients.

Ms Kaur said she didn’t think it would be wise “to force dentists to work for the NHS”.