A DENTIST has told a council meeting that the state of children's teeth in Bradford is a "tragedy," as it is 100 per cent preventable.

Tony Kilcoyne, who has a practice in Haworth, was speaking at a special meeting of Bradford Council's Health and Social Care scrutiny committee, which was discussing dental health services in Bradford. A report given to the committee, written by Bradford Public Health, Public Health England and NHS England, highlighted problems such as the high rate of tooth decay in under fives amongst other issues.

The committee heard that in Bradford £33 million a year was spent on dental care, and the debate soon turned to what could be done to educate families about the importance of dental hygiene in young children.

In an impassioned speech to the committee, Mr Kilcoyne said: "We need to remember that dental problems in children are 100 per cent preventable. Some of my colleagues go as far as saying that people are choosing to let their children's teeth rot. In this country the number one medical reason for children under 10 going to hospital is rotten teeth. That is a national statistic - in Yorkshire it is even worse and Bradford is worse still than the Yorkshire average.

"It is like dentists are putting out huge bush fires, when we should be preventing the fire from starting in the first place. These children walk through the doors of the dentists with a tragedy in their mouths. It breaks my heart that we are the worst in the country for dental health."

He told the councillors their communities would be very grateful if they did something to help improve the situation, such as help increase awareness of simple things like brushing teeth.

However Councillor Alyas Karmani said: "I agree with some of what you are saying, but I don't want you to shift blame on the community. We are spending £33 million on dental care so I don't want all the blame to be placed on the community."

Alison Knowles, Commissioning Director for NHS England, said: "It is unacceptable the those with the poorest health often have the poorest access to services. We will push money into areas of need as fast as we can."

Councillor Malcolm Sykes said: "This is a priority right now. We've had these problems in Bradford for years, but failed to deal with them in the past. Are we going to just be sat round this table in another two years time saying 'well that plan didn't work?' It is disappointing we are still having to plan how to deal with something we should have dealt with donkey's years ago."