SCHOOL dentists will screen more children following the cutbacks – but fears remain that treatment costs will see fewer cared for. The schools dental service is to introduce screening in all island schools, including independent ones, during this academic year.

Head of Dental Services Linda Norman said reforms introduced earlier this year – making it referral only for children who fit specific criteria – had freed up its three staff dentists to go into schools and check every pupil.

Nav Khaira, of the Guernsey Dental Association, welcomed the screenings but said the deterrent to parents of treatment costs remained.

‘The only way to make sure that children are seen after they have been screened is to either go to the private sector, where there is the ‘matter of’ finance, or increase the personnel within the school dental service, which means increasing the number of dentists.’

Dr Khaira suggested the service could be improved by cutting the HSSD-funded provision of complex treatment for children, channelling savings into standard treatment for more children than under the present criteria.

‘Perhaps just doing the most standard treatment and finding a resource where Social Security fund treatment for, for example, orthodontist work,’ said Dr Khaira.

The screening programme covers children at three-and-a-half, five and nine to 10s.

Mrs Norman could not say which schools would be targeted first, but said: ‘Our plan from the point of view of the programme is that every child will be screened.’

She added that it would pick out those at most risk for the treatment.

‘It helps reduce the inequality in dental health and benefits those children who have the most problems, helping to pick them up early.’

But unless those children fit criteria, parents would have to pay for any dental work undertaken as a result of the screening.

St Sampson’s deputy Sam Maindonald – a vocal critic of the service cuts – said parents were already struggling to foot the bill for dental treatment and said that a mother-of-three had only this week contacted her complaining that she faced a bill of at least £9,000 to have her three children fitted with braces.

‘However much HSSD may try to spin this issue, the fact remains that all children require a dental service and we, as a government, should not feel proud about restricting an essential service merely to those who are identified as being in ﾓmuch needﾔ – just as we should not feel proud about the student loan proposals, or the restriction of classroom/teaching assistants in our schools.

‘These measures are once again directly affecting children,’ she said.