Oldham Council has awarded Manchester start-up My Dental Buddy a two-year contract with a value of £248,000 for the provision of its oral health programme.
Founded by dentist Ramzan Mohammed in 2023 to tackle reduced access to NHS dentists, the platform offers a live dashboard for supervising teeth brushing, interactive brushing guides, and dentist-approved educational content to reinforce healthy routines.
“Children’s oral health in the UK is in a real crisis,” Dr Mohammed explains. “Tooth decay is the number one reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital, and children in the most deprived areas are nearly three times more likely to experience it. With NHS dental access at record lows, more than half of UK children haven’t had a check-up in the last year.”
The company is now planning to launch AI technology that monitors brushing in real-time, recording metrics related to coverage, angle, and inferred pressure, using a smartphone or tablet camera. £19,520 in innovation grant funding secured with support from Greater Manchester Business Growth Hub, and guidance from the hub’s health and life sciences specialist Yousef Taktak, aided in finding the right machine learning specialist.
“The benefits for children are clear,” said Taktak. “With this AI module, My Dental Buddy can help maintain the improvements achieved through dentist-led interventions and keep plaque levels low between check-ups.”
Wider trend: The role of digital in children’s health
A total of 17 health tech projects designed to reduce waiting times for children and young people’s mental health treatment have been awarded a share of £1.5 million through the NIHR’s Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme. NIHR highlights that “these newly-funded technologies could offer solutions by finding ways to streamline services, detect problems earlier, and deliver timely, personalised support when it’s needed most.” Among the funded projects is Enrich Digital Technologies Ltd’s AI-powered triage tool, designed to help signpost families to the right care pathways and services in order to access support faster.
An annual safeguarding report from East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust has highlighted the role of digital in adult and children’s safeguarding, including the full digitalisation of s42 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, and the successful launch of a maternity EPR. A bespoke digital risk assessment tool has been developed and deployed by the trust’s safeguarding team in collaboration with a national working group and NHS England safeguarding lead, in unscheduled care settings. Digital is also noted in the paediatric liaison service, where the bulk upload system is helping to support timely sharing of key safeguarding information, and an electronic referral form has been embedded within the Nervecentre patient record.
North Central London (NCL) ICB has shared its intention to award a contract worth £405k to Kooth Digital Health Limited, for the supply of an early intervention online counselling and digital support service for children and young people aged 11-25. The two-year contract is set to run until 31 March 2028, and includes the provision of a safe online platform with drop-in and booked 1:1 text-based counselling services available Monday to Friday 12:00 – 22:00, and weekends 18:00 – 22:00.
