At the latest BDA Dental Public Health Committee (DPHC) meeting (left to right): Richard Graham (BDA President), Professor Robert Witton, Peter Crooks (PEC Deputy Chair), Anna Hunt (DPHC Chair), Kamini Shah (DPHC Vice Chair), Professor Paul Bachelor and Future Leaders Programme dental student Amirali Ziaebrahimi
Anna is the lead Consultant in Dental Public Health for the West Midlands, providing specialist dental public health advice and consultant input to the relevant integrated care system and local authorities in the region.
Following news that NHS England is to be abolished – this is the main employer of most dental public health consultants – high on the committee’s agenda is ensuring this vital speciality’s role is valued and continued.
Anna said: “In spite of the huge challenges we are facing, I believe dental public health has a unique and vital role to play - in improving oral health and in ensuring the government achieves its prevention agenda. We also are actively involved in every aspect of dental commissioning, including planning services to support the government target of 700,000 urgent care dental appointments. Dental public health consultants are already in very short supply – there is no existing duplication of effort in our speciality, in fact more are needed to ensure effective and efficient implementation of dental schemes such as these.”
Anna thanked previous Chair, Professor Robert Witton, for his two terms of office, and praised the work the committee has done over the past six years, including working closely with key stakeholders to ensure the implementation of consultant and trainee pay awards for the dental public health workforce and campaigning for wider workforce issues to be addressed.
NHS dentistry is facing a severe crisis. The Government is committed to a range of policies to address this from contract reform and urgent care provision to supervised toothbrushing and water fluoridation schemes. All of these will require the skills and experience of the dental public health workforce to ensure effective implementation.
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