MORE than 12,000 children aged between six months and five years old will be sent free high-strength toothpaste and brushes through the post in a blitz on tooth decay.

Some of the pre-school youngsters will also be supervised in cleaning their teeth every day at their nurseries, playgroups and special schools.

The £170,000-a-year initiative aims to slash tooth decay among under-fives by a fifth over the next five years, to help bring it down to national levels.

It has been funded by North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) which is targeting the most deprived wards in the Staffordshire Moorlands and Newcastle.

Stoke-on-Trent which is served by a different trust will see similar measures introduced but at a later date.

The scheme is aimed at tackling the numbers of children, some as young as three, who are so wracked by pain they need their decayed milk teeth removed under a risky general anaesthetic.

New figures show five-year-olds in the North Staffordshire PCT area have an average of 1.3 decayed, missing or filled teeth, compared to just one in the West Midlands Region.

But that masks variations from 0.36 in the Biddulph North ward to 3.2 teeth in Silverdale and Parksite.

The new scheme will focus on the 19 wards where youngsters have the poorest teeth including Kidsgrove, with an average of 2.4 bad teeth per child, Wolstanton (1.9), Forsbrook and Biddulph East (both 1.8), the Westlands and Leek South (both 1.7) and Bradwell, Loggerheads and Whitmore (all 1.5).

PCT chairman George Wiskin said: "Tackling health inequalities between areas is a top priority, particularly as the more deprived wards face being worse hit in the economic downturn, and this commendable scheme intends to do that."

Three dental health improvement experts will be appointed, who will seek consent from parents to aid 3,000 children aged three to five in 60 pre-school settings.

They will then tour the educational establishments to help staff introduce and supervise daily brushing regimes with paste and brushes supplied by the PCT.

In addition, 9,400 tots between six months and three in the targeted wards will be sent high-fluoride toothpaste and brushes twice yearly. All the youngers will be regularly checked.

Dental health consultant Kate Taylor-Weetman said: "We have already done work to significantly improve the teeth of 12-year-olds, but now we need to make more of an impact among the pre-school group. We need to get fluoride paste on to teeth as soon as they appear, both to save them from decay and to get children into good habits lasting their lifetime.

"The pain and time off school at such a young age are unacceptable when decay is preventable."

She added that the scheme would have more impact on oral health than employing an extra dentist and support at a cost of £180,000 a year.

PCT chief executive Tony Bruce said: "In 30 years in the NHS I have rarely seen a scheme which so clearly targets improvements over a given time-scale."

Private dentists take over former NHS surgery: Page 14