Regular daily toothbrushing with an appropriate fluoride toothpaste is highly effective in preventing dental decay. The programme supports good oral hygiene practice to be established at an early stage in a child’s life and to become an integral part of normal daily hygiene.
These resources are designed to support Early Years settings to start a programme
Please access the toolkit for more detailed information: Improving Oral Health: Supervised toothbrushing programme toolkit; Commissioning and delivering supervised toothbrushing schemes in early years and school settings. Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, (updated 17 April 2025).
Useful information and resources are also available at: https://www.supervisedtoothbrushing.com/
For each setting, appropriate governance and quality assurance arrangements will need to be considered, including information for parents/carers and consent forms.
Setting staff are responsible for:
- Ensuring that staff who implement and supervise the scheme have had training
- Managing permission or consent forms, keeping these in the child’s personal file and making all staff aware of the children who are not taking part in the toothbrushing scheme
- Committing to the scheme, providing daily supervised toothbrushing and following the guidelines
- Ensuring the scheme follows infection prevention and control procedures
- Checking equipment on a regular basis and ensuring the appropriate resources are used
- Ensuring that the brush storage units are stored carefully and looked after for continued use
- Liaising to give feedback on uptake and to enable evaluation of the national scheme.
Please find the following information and templates:
2. Quality Assurance Checklist for Supervised Toothbrushing
3. Training Slides on Oral Health
4. Training Pack and Information on Supervised Toothbrushing
5. Toothbrushing Record for Staff
7. Poster – Top Tips for Toothbrushing
9. Video – Mouth care Matters – Toothbrushing – What is the best way?
10. Video – Mouth care Matters – Now you have teeth
11. Leaflet to Support Toothbrushing for Children with Special Educational Needs