BASCD Spring Scientific Meeting 2025
What I learned about…
Thursday 19th – Friday 20th June 2025 ,
Cardiff University
Register now
Clare works as a Senior Transformation Manager for the Primary & Integrated Neighbourhood Care team, within the NHS Lancashire & South Cumbria Integrated Care Board. Her role is to work collaboratively with primary care colleagues and wider stakeholders in the strategic planning, service transformation, and commissioning of primary care dental services. She also works clinically part-time as a Senior Dental Officer within NHS Community Dental Services.
Qualified as a dentist in 1983, Eric has worked in clinical practice and held a number of roles in the National Health Service including Clinical Director, Medical Director and Consultant in Dental Public Health.
He has wide experience of dental policy development and in 2008/9 he co-authored “NHS Dental Services in England, An Independent Review” led by Professor Jimmy Steele. He was Clinical Lead for the Department of Health’s subsequent Dental contract reform programme.
He was active in the BDA in his early career and served as chair of the NHS Policy Group, has been an invited Board member of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and is a Past President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD). He was instrumental in establishing the dental school at the University of Central Lancashire and was honorary Professor of Dental and Oral Health Policy.
He was Deputy Chief Dental Officer at NHS England from November 2015 until January 2021, where he led the work on developing Local Dental Networks and integrating dentistry within the developing NHS. Latterly he was engaged in the development of the policy and protocols for dentistry in the Covid pandemic.
He remains an Honorary Consultant to the OCDO and has a part time contract supporting Primary Care Integration in the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System
Nabihah is a Dental Core Trainee at King’s College Hospital, working across the Special Care and Community Dental departments. She graduated from King’s College London and spent a few years working as a General Dentist in London and Buckinghamshire. After a good grounding in general practice, she took up a DCT post to further her skills in treating more complex patients, and undertake training in sedation.
Ross completed his BDS in 2013 at Bristol University, UK, obtaining distinction in a Postgraduate Certificate of Business and Management in 2015 with the University of Essex and a distinction in his Masters’ in Public Health at the University of Manchester in 2021. He is currently completing an MBA with Quantic Institute.
He is a Member of the Academy of Medical Educators since 2018 and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians Glasgow, Scotland, in 2016, becoming a Fellow in March 2023.
He completed specialty training in Dental Public Health in September 2023, and currently works as a Consultant in Public Health at Knowsley Local Authority, where he is Deputy Director leading on Health Protection.
Máiréad Harding is the current BASCD President 2023-2024.
She has been a BASCD Council member since 2019, and keenly supports the Associations values of science, philosophy and practice of promoting oral health of populations and groups in society.
Máiréad Harding is professor of Dental Public Health and Preventive Dentistry in Cork University Dental School and Hospital, her main interests focussing on measurement, epidemiology and health services research.
Jason Wong MBE is the interim Chief Dental Officer for England.
Awarded an MBE for services to dentistry and oral health, Jason has previously chaired local dental networks across parts of the Midlands and the East of England and was also secretary of Lincolnshire Local Dental committee for 16 years. His role as Chief Dental Officer now sees him working in collaboration with local and regional teams to deliver improved outcomes for patients, while also championing the role of dentists and dentistry within the health system.
Andrew graduated in Dentistry from Leeds University and Medicine at Newcastle University. He has over 30 years' experience as a clinician within the NHS, with a varied career in education, management, and healthcare leadership. Professionally he is an accredited Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon and registered specialist in Oral Surgery. From 2014 - 2022 he was a Postgraduate Dental Dean until joining Welsh Government as Chief Dental Officer.
Andrew has a broad experience within postgraduate medical and dental education with particular interest in the quality assurance of educational programmes, widening participation, leadership development and integrating digital technology into clinical practice. His personal interest is in workforce and service planning within rural settings. He was appointed a Visiting Professorship in Health & Social Care at the University of Chester in recognition of his contribution to the field of rural education.
Kevin Fenton is the President of the Faculty of Public Health. He is a senior public health expert and infectious disease epidemiologist who has worked in a variety of public health executive leadership roles across government and academia in the United Kingdom and internationally. His specialist interests are in tackling health inequalities, infectious disease prevention and control, climate justice and urban health.
Professor Fenton is the Regional Director for London in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Within this role, he is also the statutory public health advisor to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority and the Regional Director of Public Health for NHS London. He is also the government’s Chief Advisor on HIV and Chair of the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group for England.
As President, Kevin works closely with the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, UK Local Government Association and a wide range of partners who have interests in Public Health. Kevin is committed to working with all 4 Nations of the UK and FPH members across the world.
Professor Jenny Gallagher MBE is the Newland-Pedley Professor of Oral Health Strategy/Honorary Consultant in Dental Public Health. At King’s College London she is an Ambassador for International, Engagement and Service, having held the post of Dean for International Affairs at Faculty for over six years.
Professor Gallagher has just been elected Vice-President of IADR, the global organisation for dental, oral and craniofacial research and will take up this role at the forthcoming conference in New Orleans, March 2024. She has held several senior professional leadership roles over the course of her career including President of BASCD (2012/13), Chair of Dental Public Health Consultants’ Group (2017/21), Co-president of EADPH (2012), and President of the Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Network of IADR (2022/23). She is currently an elected member of Faculty Board of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (2020/26).
Research interests include a particular focus on shaping the healthcare workforce to meet the needs of the population, with a strong emphasis on prevention and the care of vulnerable groups, drawing on the skill mix of the dental team. She has been advising the World Health Organization on global oral health workforce issues as well as country-specific research collaborations.
Actively involved in workforce education and training including specialty and doctoral training, Jenny has led national and European working groups. Nationally, she was the academic lead in the Fourth Edition of ‘Delivering Better Oral Health’ evidence-based toolkit for prevention for all dental professionals.
Professor Gallagher was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List of 2015 for her services to oral health.
Zoe Marshman joined the University of Sheffield in 2002 and now works as a professor of dental public health. Her main interest is child-centred dental research to improve the oral health and treatment experiences of children and their families. Zoe has experience of leading large multi-centred randomised controlled trials, integrating qualitative research into trials and conducting process evaluations. She has published widely on topics including dental anxiety, oral health-related quality of life and oral health promotion. She has led the development and evaluation of novel theory-based interventions and assessment approaches.
Sally Holland is a Professor of Social Work in the School of Social Sciences in Cardiff University. Her areas of research and interest are children's social work, children's rights and public involvement in research. She is currently leading the evaluation of the Welsh Government's Basic Income Pilot for care leavers. She has carried out several studies with looked after children and care leavers, including a study of a community dentist service for looked after children in Northumberland. In 2014 Sally launched the CASCADE Children's Social Care research centre which has subsequently become the largest centre of its kind in Europe, with over 30 research staff and a portfolio of millions of pounds in grants over the last ten years. In 2022 Sally was named in the top 100 of global social work academics, in terms of article citations. Between 2015 and 2022 Sally was the Children's Commissioner for Wales , which is an independent role dedicated to promoting children's human rights and scrutinising and holding to account those charged with implementing them.
Paul Brocklehurst is a NHS Consultant with Public Health Wales and an Honorary Professor at University College London and Cardiff University. He leads on oral health intelligence in Wales, including the Dental Epidemiology Programme. Prior to his role in Public Health Wales, he was the Director of the Clinical Trials Unit in North Wales and the Deputy Chief Dental Officer for Wales. He remains an active academic and to date has published over 100 papers and attracted over £5M in grant income. His research interests include care for older people, participatory research, trials in complex settings and implementation research.
In the last decade or so of my career I was the Chief Dental Officer for Scotland where I had the privilege of working with the profession across its various domains, and with government ministers and civil servants. By building on the hard work of my predecessor, we were able to see positive changes in the level of oral health.
Since retiring, I have had a period of working as a vaccinator during COVID when I observed what can be achieved in a short time when there was a will accompanied by funding, I was also reminded of how it felt to worry about patients. In recent times I have achieved very little but have enjoyed playing the saxophone, completing a course on interior design, learning upholstery and dabbling with acting.
Jess is in her final year of specialty training in dental public health and is based at Public Health Wales in Cardiff. Her recent work has included piloting digital consent in Wales' national oral health improvement programme, Designed to Smile.
Ivor Chestnutt is Professor in Dental Public Health at Cardiff University, Honorary Consultant to Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and is a Specialist in Dental Public Health. He is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and received both his MPH and PhD degrees from the University of Glasgow. He holds Fellowships in Dental Surgery from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Surgeons, England. Ivor is also a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and of the Higher Education Academy.
He was Clinical Director of the University Dental Hospital for six years and led the Dental Hospital and School through the COVID 19 pandemic. Ivor was Director of Postgraduate Dental Education in the School of Dentistry for eleven years. He has generated over £6 million in grant income (£1.5M as principal investigator, the remainder as co-applicant). He has published widely in the field of dental public health.
He is the in-coming President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD) and currently acts as Hon Secretary to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
A proud native of County Antrim, he has lived in Northern Ireland for 19 years, in Scotland for 18 years and Wales for 26 years. He is therefore technically qualified to play rugby for Ireland, Scotland and Wales, lacking only the technical skills, athletic ability and having been around the block too many times.
Heather is a Clinical Lecturer and Specialty Trainee in Paediatric Dentistry at Cardiff University, where she is also completing a part-time PhD. She graduated from the University of Dundee in 2015 and has gained extensive experience across primary and secondary care settings in the UK and New Zealand. During this time, she achieved Membership of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical and Health Education.
Since joining Cardiff University in 2021, Heather has been actively involved in clinical dentistry, teaching, and research. Her PhD explores practitioner implementation of evidence-based Minimally Invasive Dentistry (MID) for managing caries in children. She teaches in this field both nationally and internationally.
In recognition of her research, Heather was awarded the Nathan Cochrane Prize for Best Junior Scientist at the ORCA Congress in 2024. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a title she received in 2023.
Charlotte started her career as a Dental Nurse more than 30 years ago and worked in a clinical environment for about 8 years. She has held positions in both dental public health and community dental services management for two London Primary Care Trusts from 2000 to 2011. Concurrently Charlotte started teaching part-time in 2000 at Bart’s and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, where she was also the first DCP to gain a PG certificate in Teaching and Learning for Medical and Dental students. During this time Charlotte served on the National Oral Health Promotion committee and was Chair of the group in 2007-8.
In 2011 she moved into higher education full time at the University of Greenwich, where she is now the Head of the School of Human Sciences spanning three campuses with 130 members of staff. Charlotte has a PhD in (dental) public health ethics focusing on inequalities and their role in parental consent for community programmes.
Charlotte was one of the first dental care professional to be accepted as a member of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry in 2012 and in 2017 she joined the Council as the Oral Health Lead after acting as their appointed auditor for a year. In 2024 Charlotte will be the first dental care professional to be elected as President of BASCD. Charlotte is an international reviewer of public health curriculums with APHEA (Association for Public Health Education Accreditation). She was part of the group who initially drafted the UKPHR practitioner standards after petitioning for practitioner registration for some years prior to this. She subsequently played a role in the review of these standards in 2017/8 and has been an assessor with the UKPHR since 2012. In 2023 she was awarded Honorary membership of the Faculty of Public Health in recognition of her work in the field of dental public health. More recently Charlotte has also been awarded Fellowship of the College of General Dentistry.
Dr Anwen Cope is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Dental Public Health at Cardiff University. She is also an Honorary Consultant at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. She has been doing research on the use of antimicrobials in the management of dental problems since 2011. She leads a Cochrane Review of antibiotic use for dental abscesses and has chaired the Welsh Dental Antimicrobial Prescribing and Resistance Working Group. She advocates for a whole-system approach to antimicrobial stewardship in oral health and is interested in the influence of contractual levers on the delivery of care for dental problems.
Anup is a Consultant in Dental Public Health in Public Health Wales. He has been working as a consultant in dental public health since 2011.
Before entering dental public traning in 2007, Anup gained clinical experience in the GDS, CDS, HDS and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
Andrew is dual qualified in Dentistry and Medicine. He has over 33 years’ experience as a clinician within the NHS, with a varied career in education, management, and healthcare leadership. He is an accredited Maxillofacial Surgeon, specialising in paediatric surgery. From 2014 - 2022 he was a Postgraduate Dean at Health Education England until joining Welsh Government as Chief Dental Officer in April 2022.
Andrew has broad experience within postgraduate training, with particular interest in monitoring system performance, Human Factors in healthcare, widening participation and leadership development. His personal interest is service planning within rural settings, which was recognised with a Visiting Professorship to the University of Chester. Andrew also holds a Visiting Professorship in Healthcare at Coventry University.
Adrian Edwards is Professor of General Practice at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. He is the Director of PRIME Centre Wales, the all-Wales Centre for Primary and Emergency care research, in partnership with Bangor University, Swansea University and University of South Wales. He is also a part-time general practitioner in Cwmbran, Gwent, South Wales, has a visiting professorship at Aarhus University, Denmark and is Director of the Health & Care Research Wales Evidence Centre.
