That was the message from the new chief dental officer (CDO) for England, Sara Hurley, when she addressed delegates at the British Association of Dental Therapists (BADT) national conference last week September 25-26.
Joining her predecessor, Barry Cockcroft, in delivering the event’s keynote speech, she advocated the policy of dental teams considering themselves as “one entity” when tackling dental health care.
She also promised to act on any ideas put forward by DCPs in order to successfully facilitate the necessary changes for future care.
Speaking after the conference, she said: ‘The conference was an outstanding success, testament to the talent and energy of an exceptional group of health care professionals. I was honoured to be present and to initiate a dialogue, which I am confident will endure and produce high value health dividends for our patients.’
BADT president, Fiona Sandom, said: “The fact the CDO Sara Hurley chose to address dental therapists in her first 100 days in post signifies how much she values DCPs and views us an integral part of delivering dental treatment. She spoke of the dental profession – and not of dentists and DCPs – which I thought interesting and demonstrated a mind-set.”
Amanda Gallie, BADT president elect, also welcomed her address. She said: “It’s heartening to hear Sara Hurley acknowledge the value of DCPs and to hear that she wishes to keep in touch with us, offering to be a sounding board and conduit for our ideas and suggestions.”
In his contribution to the opening presentation of the conference, Barry Cockcroft, past CDO for England and now non-executive director of mydentist, said the profession must “learn from the past in order to predict the future.”
He argued that data – and accurate interpretation of that data – was key to developing services for the future and, whilst acknowledging the current inequalities in child dental health, maintained that these could not be tackled by improvement of dental services alone.
The joint presentation concluded that segmentation of the workforce was not a “sensible way” to plan and deliver the best outcomes.
The BADT annual conference this year was held at the Birmingham Aston University Conference Centre.
The concept for the conference differed to previous years, with an emphasis on lectures on the first day followed by hands-on sessions on the second day of the event.
The lectures this year covered minimally invasive dentistry, composites, peri-implantitis and social media.
Saturday saw four full day hands-on sessions, with Colgate’s Anousheh Alavi, running an interactive session that combined periodontology theory and practical skills, Leigh Hunter overseeing a session on minimally invasive dentistry, Nikhil Sethi teaching an interactive session on the perfect anterior composite and Mel Joyce’s session on confidence on composites.
A gala dinner was well received on Friday evening, with a charity raffle in aid of Bloodwise raising £275.
This year also saw a large number of new graduates and foundation dental therapy students in attendance, welcomed by the organisers.
Kamran Rasul, BADT conference co-ordinator, said: “It was an amazing weekend and I would like to thank all our sponsors, industry partners and everyone who attended on helping making this weekend a success. It was amazing to see so many young and enthusiastic dental therapists with bright futures ahead of them.
“Huge thanks must go to Colgate, Oral-B, Optident, Ivoclar Vivadent, Medivance and Dental Circle who supported the range of amazing speakers.”