Does brushing your teeth count as washing?

Activity 4.

Any thoughts anyone?

It doesn’t come under the normal, everyday meaning of “washing”. If it were “cleaning”, I would say certainly. However, I don’t see why not.

ADM ch.P2 states: “There is no legal definition [of ‘wash’]. The ordinary meaning, to clean oneself to an acceptable standard with water, should be used”

Ultimately it’s arguable, however these would be the problems:

1. For descriptors b and c, the phrase used is ‘wash or bathe’ wish might be read so that only washing that is similar or related to bathing is included. See here.

2. For the other descriptors where washing is mentioned, specific parts of the body are required, which don’t include the mouth or teeth.

On the other hand, if someone needs prompting or assistance to brush their teeth, would it also be likely they would need the same help washing their face and hair as well?

I think would say that cleaning one’s teeth is a fundamental part of washing. Despite the fact that a specific tool and products (toothbrush and toothpaste/floss) need to be used to ‘wash’ a specific part of the body - it stills fits in with the dictionary definition of washing as far as I am concerned.

If somebody, for whatever reason, was able to wash their entire body except their teeth then I would say they have failed to wash their body to an acceptable standard.

Dental care is strongly recommended by the NHS, the serious implications to one’s health of not cleaning the teeth on a regular basis, at least twice a day, are well understood and evidenced.

Had this tribunal now and panel appeared to accept that failure to brush teeth constituted failure to wash, we got the points for washing & bathing. Not specifically mentioned in the decision but a few questions about it during the hearing and indications are that they were happy to accept that it fell within the descriptor.