Find out which Black Country borough is claimed to have the worst teeth

The data from the NHS showed that in total there were more than four million tooth extractions carried out by NHS dentists in the last financial year.

Extractions were most common in South Tyneside – one for every six children and adults.

But Sandwell was not far behind, with one in every eight people having to undergo the unpleasant experience of having a tooth pulled out.

The same ratio was seen in Hull and Stoke-on-Trent, while in Blackpool and Medway there has been one extraction for every seven people.

Across the UK, among adults there were 3.1 million extractions together, with 917,346 performed on children.

The figures also showed that four out of 10 children have not visited a dentist in the last year, and that this worrying number is only rising.

Some 42.1 per cent of under-18s – almost five million children – did not visit an NHS dentist in 2015/16, which is up by 40 per cent from the year before, data from NHS Digital shows.

In addition over a two-year period from 2014 to 2016, 48.3 per cent of adults did not visit a dentist. Figures also showed a rise in hospital treatment for children suffering tooth decay.

There were more than 14,000 cases among children aged five and under needing teeth removed in hospital in 2014/15.

Professor Nigel Hunt, dean of the faculty of dental surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, said:

"With the average five-year-old now eating their own weight in sugar each year, it is alarming that 42.1 per cent of children failed to visit an NHS dentist at all in the last year."