Working for the NHS Community Dental Service allows me to take my dental nursing out to local Schools in order to carry out school screening. We want to ensure we are checking the teeth of little ones and catching any children that may not have access to dental care. Around 45 little faces lines up in the nursery. Some beaming and eager to come to the front, some gripping onto the parent/teacher for dear life! The great thing about seeing children all together in their school environment is that they copy each other. Those who weren’t so sure at first soon changed their mind once they saw their classmates get checked.

Three dental nurses and one Dental Officer are armed and at the ready- The operator is doing the check-ups, I am recording the findings, another nurse is applying fluoride and a final nurse is handing out stickers and high-fives! Any child who has caries is identified and we have a brief chat with the parent/teacher. If needed, we follow up and make an appointment for their child to be treated at our local clinic. It runs like a well oiled machine, is done in about an hour, but this is the result of about 6 weeks planning. Gaining consents, collecting information about what dentist they see and details of any allergies. We have a great rapport with our local nurseries and they are very grateful for our support. For some children, they could have slipped through the net and only received dental treatment at the stage they were in pain or had infection.