Alpha Mummy: We need to be more American with our children's teeth

As George Bernard Shaw said: “The man with toothache thinks everyone is happy whose teeth are sound.” William Shakespeare felt the same: “For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently,” he said in Much Ado About Nothing.

T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene and even Jane Austen were all preoccupied by the state of the nation's teeth. Our rotten mouths have been a British obsession since sugar was introduced and courtiers began to whisper that Elizabeth I's incisors were wooden.

But for the past 30 years gnashing about teeth has become unfashionable. Fluoride in the water made a difference and so did the introduction of initially free dentistry as a crucial part of the NHS in 1948. When Martin Amis wrote about his extensive dental treatment in his memoirs Experience, he was ridiculed; no one wanted to hear horror stories about teeth any more. Topsy and Tim had taught everyone to brush their teeth twice a day and visit the dentist twice a year. For a brief, glorious period, British teeth began to improve. We didn't want Tom Cruise's dazzle, but Kate Moss's snaggle of teeth looked clean.

Now the recession is rotting people's teeth again. It's not all the Maltesers we are consuming in the downturn (though I hope you flossed after all those Easter eggs), but teeth have been one of the first things to go in the credit crunch. According to a parliamentary answer published last week, the number of tooth extractions has jumped by 30 per cent in the past four years, and particularly in the past year. Meanwhile, the number of complex treatments such as crowns and dentures has dropped by 57 per cent in the past two years.

A summer holiday camping in Devon or a couple of crowns on your molars? The answer is easy. Mend the washing machine or have a filling? It's cheaper to have your tooth pulled out, even if that now costs at least £45.60.

According to MORI, one in three children didn't see a dentist last year, often because their parents couldn't find an NHS practitioner or afford the private fees. School shoes and piano lessons come first; parents assume they can sort out their offsprings' teeth later.

Liam Treadwell, this year's winning Grand National jockey, was teased by television presenter Clare Balding for his gappy teeth, when she told him: “You can afford to get them done now if you like.. He received huge support from his many dentally challenged fellow countrymen, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of her remarks was the casual assumption that only the rich and successful can afford decent teeth.

It's not just the recession that has put a hole in Britain's teeth. The rot set in 20 years ago. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair always felt they had been successful despite being dentally impaired. Mr Blair did promise that everyone would be able to see an NHS dentist again in two years', but never straightened his own teeth or anyone else's properly. He believed that the NHS had an obligation to treat obese patients, smokers and drug addicts, but not those who, through no fault of their own, often suffer from “dientes ingleses”, as the Mexicans call them.

Before Mr Blair became Prime Minister, only 6 per cent of dentists' income came from private patients. By 2006 it was 58 per cent. Since the Government introduced its dental contract in 2006, designed to increase access to NHS dentistry, the number of patients seeing a dentist has actually fallen further as even more practitioners have gone private. The contract enraged dentists who were paid the same for one filling as six, and who found it was more profitable to take a tooth out than to save it with complex treatments.

According to a survey for the Citizens Advice Bureau, 7.4 million Britons failed to gain access to the remaining NHS dentists in the past two years. One in 20 said he or she now resorted to DIY surgery, including the use of pliers. But even if you do find a dentist, the cost of a filling has risen from £14 to £43 for adults in the past few years. In Scotland, where the new contract was not brought in and NHS dentists are still as easy to find as fried Mars Bars, complex procedures have risen.

In England, hospitals have been forced to plug the holes. According to this month's British Dental Journal, more than 30,000 children were given emergency treatment on their teeth in hospital last year.

Our 16-year-old neighbour in Devon has been suffering crippling toothache. His mother rang 16 NHS dentists between Cornwall and Somerset - none could see him in the next six months. Eventually he went to the emergency dentist at Heavitree hospital in Exeter. The dentist explained that the teenager needed all his milk teeth extracted and chains to pull down his adult teeth before wearing braces for two years. He was thrilled that someone was finally doing something, but he will be the only child in his class lucky enough to have train tracks.

Why do I care so much? Because my teeth were so atrocious as a child that they are a case study in three textbooks. When the orthodontist in The Simpsons waved The Big Book of British Smiles at Lisa, I should have been in it. Dental students at the John Radcliffe Hospital watched in awe when I had my braces tightened.

There are many unfortunate sides of the credit crunch. But even if we have to go running to the IMF for a loan, surely we British are not so poor that we must face this uncertain future with wretched tombstones.

Times Recommends

• Fundamentalist brew: faith and power
• Big guns wheeled out for the marginals
• Wanted: new merchants of light