Question on Notice No. 1870 Asked on 13 November 2007 MR LANGBROEK asked the Minister for Health (MR ROBERTSON)- QUESTION: Will he advise if all Queensland school children up to 15 years are having annual visits from school dental therapists and will he detail these visits by school and year group (for the last three years) and list schools not visited for 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07? ANSWER: Queensland Health’s School Oral Health program provided 1,867,490 occasions of public dental service to school-aged children in Queensland schools during the period 2004-05 to 2006-07. The MPS target estimates for school occasions of service during 2007-08 are 595,000-615,000. The recent welcome announcement by Premier Anna Bligh relating to the roll-out of water fluoridation will see 80% of Queenslanders drinking fluoridated water within two years, growing to 90% by 2012. This will be of major benefit to future generations of school children as it is expected that need, and subsequently demand, for dental treatment will be reduced. Data collection from School Oral Health Services is service orientated. It does not include patient information such as age or year group or which provider has provided the service. Treatment of school-aged children through the program requires parental consent. Consent for treatment to be provided during school visits is declining. In 2005-06, 68.7% of those children offered treatment through a school visit provided consent for treatment. This compares with 68.4% in 2004-05 and 70.9% in 2004-03. 2006-07 data is still to be finalised. Annual visits are not provided to each school. In some areas, particularly rural and remote, even though an on-site school visit did not take place during the year, children will have been seen at their Community Oral Health Clinic as an alternative to the school visit. Attachment 1.