Children in the US are being treated to free emergency dentist treatments by a service known as the Tooth Taxi.

The Tooth Taxi allows dental professionals to come into schools across the country and offer free check-ups and treatments to children who are in need of access to dental care, but who otherwise might not be able to afford to have treatments carried out.

Tooth Taxi dentist Weston Heringer commented: "It’s so important to take care of baby teeth. Tooth decay is a preventable disease. You just got to stay on it."

He noted that parents should brush and floss their children’s teeth up to the age of eight years old.

Last year, Dr Heringer carried out more than $46,000 (£27,765) worth of free dentistry work on kids.

Elsewhere, US newspaper the Richmond Register recently noted that 40 per cent of children in Kentucky have never visited a dentist.

The publication claimed "such statistics are unacceptable", but as yet there are too few dentists currently operating in the state to effectively bring this figure down.