Local authorities are responsible for gathering information on the oral health needs of their local populations. Each year the National Dental Epidemiology Programme (NDEP) surveys a population group on behalf of the local authorities. This is organised by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID). The population group for the 2026 to 2027 survey will be 3 year old children attending Ofsted registered early years provision. The survey will use pre-agreed standardised procedures for sampling, examining, categorising and reporting. The findings will allow local authorities to monitor the oral health of this age group. This page explains more about the NDEP surveys.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and your local council are undertaking the upcoming dental survey of 3 year old children attending an Ofsted registered early years group setting across England. These settings include day nurseries, both state-funded and private, nursery schools, nursery classes attached to schools and pre-schools and playgroups.

The survey provides information on the oral health of children and aims to support actions to improve oral health, reduce health inequalities and improve the provision of treatment services. Early years settings are selected to participate at random and selected settings will be contacted in the coming weeks by the local survey provider to arrange a visit to examine the children.

Your setting may have been involved in the last survey of 3 year old children in 2019 to 2020 and, as the setting selection is random, it may be selected to participate again this year.

The survey provider in your area that will carry out the dental examinations in your early years setting is following advice that aligns with national and local infection prevention and control and follows any local risk assessments.

To show staff, parents, persons with parental responsibility and children what happens at the visit, a short video is available to view on this page.

The importance of healthy mouths in children

Having a healthy mouth is important to overall health and wellbeing. Children who have tooth decay may have pain, infections, difficulties with eating, sleeping and socialising and may require time off for dental treatment.

Oral health is therefore an important aspect of a child’s overall health status and of their school readiness. Oral health is seen as a marker of wider health and social care issues including poor nutrition and obesity. Interventions that reduce sugar intake reduce the risk of tooth decay and obesity because high intakes of free-sugars are known risk factors for both.

Support from early years providers

The dental survey is commissioned by the local authority and involves a dental examination of selected 3 year old children. Delivery has been most successful in areas where settings have helped and we are grateful for your cooperation and support as we undertake the survey over the coming months, for example by:

  • sending letters to parents to inform them about the programme and requesting parental agreement to participation in the survey. We will provide you with a letter and an agreement to participate form to give to parents
  • receiving the signed analogue or digital agreement forms from parents
  • collating names of any children who have agreement to participate in the survey and providing their date of birth, home postcode, sex at birth, ethnicity and multiple birth status (for example whether the child has a twin), for transfer via a secure e-mail or by hand to fieldwork teams
  • providing the signed agreement forms to the fieldwork team
  • cross checking agreement to participate forms for each child participating in the survey on the day of examination
  • identifying a room or area where the examination can be undertaken privately
  • arranging for staff to help bring children to and from the examination area.

The National Dental Epidemiology Programme and the General Data Protection Regulation/Data Protection Act 2018: advice for early years settings

All local authorities in England are required to undertake dental surveys as part of a programme of work to help improve the oral health of people in their area.

The official authority for oral health surveys is provided by The NHS Bodies and Local Authorities (Partnership Arrangements, Care Trusts, Public Health and Local Healthwatch) Regulations 2012.

Only children for whom parental agreement has been received should be included in a survey.

The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018)

  • The statutory instrument for the NDEP means that the lawful basis for processing this data is considered to be provided by the following articles of the GDPR:
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(c) – processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation
  • GDPR Article 9(g) Reasons of substantial public interest (with a basis in law)
  • GDPR Article 9(j) Archiving, research and statistics (with a basis in law)
  • No change is needed to the ways in which children’s personal information is used and shared for the NDEP data collection to be lawful under the GDPR/DPA 2018.

This legal duty means that parental consent is not needed for early years settings to lawfully use and share children’s personal information for the National Dental Epidemiology Programme under the GDPR and DPA 2018. Early years settings can lawfully provide names and dates of births of 3 year old children eligible to take part in the survey to NHS dental teams and other providers undertaking the dental examinations on behalf of the local authority.

Providing names and dates of birth to the dental team will help to make sure the child is the correct age on the day of examination. All data processes for this survey have been designed in accordance with data protection principles, including those of data minimisation, fairness and transparency. However, parents or persons with parental responsibility must still provide their written or electronic agreement for children to be included in a dental survey in an early years setting.

The dental service will support you and your team in contacting parents and persons with parental responsibility prior to their visit. We appreciate that the setting is busy and assure you that the service will do everything possible to minimise any disruption. They will also provide evidence of enhanced security clearance at the visit.