The Dental Leadership Network met to discuss the next generation of dental professionals and how best to train them for the demands of the profession.
Convened by the General Dental Council (GDC), the Dental Leadership Network (DLN) met on 25 March 2025 to discuss the expectations, development and career of a new generation of dental professionals. The day featured a series of lectures, panels and networking sessions centred around trainee and newly-qualified professionals. Topics ranged from how BDS students can be prepared for clinical practice to potential early-career development opportunities.
The DLN meetings have been taking place each quarter since November 2023. Their purpose is to bring influential figures in dentistry to share information, collaborate and resolve challenges. Previous topics have included the health and wellbeing of dental professionals and maintaining the dental workforce.
Community-based training
One theme that recurred throughout the day’s discussions was the value of community-based training, both for dental education and for improving local dental access.
Ewen McColl, head of the University of Plymouth’s Peninsula Dental School, explained how his institution was utilising community-based care to train future professionals. He described this approach as a ‘symbiosis’, benefitting the community and the students alike.
Ewen shared the testimonial of one patient whose mouth cancer was identified by a BDS student. He said: ‘My simple gratitude feels totally inadequate.’ The educator felt that this showed the extent to which ‘dental education is not just about fillings – it’s about being oral physicians too’.
The lecture also detailed new plans to open an urgent dental clinic staffed by Plymouth’s dental students. This will provide day-to-day emergency dental care outside of the hospital setting typically used for dental foundation training. Ewen said this would give students a lot of exposure to ‘urgent care, stabilisation and getting patients out of pain’.
In particular, visitors to this urgent care setting were considered by Ewen to be ideally placed to challenge trainees as they might have complex unaddressed dental needs due to an inability to afford dental care. This could include refugees, abuse victims or the homeless population – patients desperately in need of access to dental care. Ewen said: ‘Every patient has different circumstances.’
King’s College clinical tutor Roshni Karia corroborated the need for hands-on training. She said: ‘The expectations of younger registrants haven’t changed. They want to have capability, which is different from competence because it includes experience – we need to provide this.’
‘We need to inspire people by individually talking to young professionals and showing them why we still love dentistry.’
Rhiannon Jones, BSDHT president
Mentoring
Another important tool for dental education identified by the speakers was mentoring. Dentist and GDC clinical advisor Mabel Saw explained that tennis professionals employ coaches and mentors, not because they are struggling, but because they want to be pushed further. She suggested that dental professionals should apply a similar approach, utilising mentorship to get the best out of young professionals at the top of their game.
She proceeded to compare this attitude to the ‘prevention over cure’ approach to dentistry. Rather than waiting for problems to arise before intervening, Mabel advocated for proactivity to prevent the ‘risk factors for poor performance’ in trainees.
Postgraduate dental dean Brid Hendron agreed with this stance. She said: ‘Feedback and appraisal is challenging but so important in these early years.’
Rhiannon Jones, president of the British Society of Dental Hygienists and Therapists (BSDHT), also highlighted the benefits of mentoring for inspiring and motivating young dental professionals. She said: ‘We need to inspire people by individually talking to young professionals and showing them why we still love dentistry.’
However, orthodontic therapist Mel O’Keefe made the point that the benefits of mentorship must be clear for trainers as well as trainees. She said: ‘Mentoring is huge. Mentors need to know what the mentee wants and how it will benefit the practice in the long run.’
Brid Hendron also clarified: ‘Mentoring is hugely valuable but I wouldn’t want it to take away from the patient care that is our ultimate aim.’
Beyond clinical competence
Ewen McColl shared some elements of dental education that go beyond clinical skills with delegates. For example, the foundational understanding of scope of practice and teamwork that is established in the first year of a BDS. He also said it was important to ‘invest in keeping education up to date’ with rapid technological development.
However Roshni Karia pointed out the lack of business skills taught in dental school. She said: ‘The sad reality is that while we are healthcare professionals, dentists are running businesses. I would say that we need to prepare trainees for that.’
Many of the event’s attendees agreed that dental education does not go far enough in teaching soft skills beyond clinical competence. Brid Hendron explained the importance of skills such as communication and complaints handling – ‘all the things that might not be considered dentistry but are fundamental to working in the profession’.
Catherine Rutland, clinical director at Denplan, felt that these ‘soft’ skills are actually the hardest to learn and teach.
‘The sad reality is that while we are healthcare professionals, dentists are running businesses. I would say that we need to prepare trainees for that.’
Roshni Karia, King’s College clinical tutor
Is dentistry attracting the right workers?
Roshni Karia suggested that dental admissions processes may not be selecting students with an aptitude for these soft skills. She asked: ‘Have the school leavers with the best grades got communication skills and emotional intelligence?’
The discussion then turned to how the right people can be attracted to work in dentistry. Roshni proposed in-person interviews as an important step in determining applicants’ aptitude for all aspects of dentistry, beyond just academic intelligence.
Kate Kerslake, chief executive of the National Examining Board for Dental Nurses (NEBDN), also stressed the need to make school leavers aware of career pathways within dentistry. She said: ‘We need to spread the word beyond this room. Many children don’t know the opportunities that exist in dentistry.’
Mel O’Keefe agreed, saying: ‘Going back to school, no one knows they want to be a dental nurse during their GCSEs. It would be helpful to establish a base of knowledge at school age.’
Ewen McColl said that funding was a major barrier to getting the right students onto dental courses. He said: ‘If funding was there, more places would be available. Many school leavers with the potential to be great dental professionals will not get a place.’
However, chief dental officer for Scotland Tom Ferris said he was ‘perplexed’ by the implication that dentistry was not already attracting the right people. He continued: ‘It sounds like the dental students are really engaged, so I think we do have the right people.’
Work-life balance
The day’s conversation also considered the expectations of a new generation of dental professionals. For example, many of the gathered leaders felt that new graduates place greater value on work-life balance.
Colin Melville, medical director at the General Medical Council, observed this trend across both medicine and dentistry. He said: ‘The younger generation would like to work to live rather than live to work. We need to restructure the workforce on this basis.’
Prioritising wellbeing was also seen to enhance performance by many. Brid Hendron said: ‘Patients are at the heart of what we do. But I think we can all agree that patients receive better care if the person performing it is happy. It’s all a balance.’
While Tom Ferris did not blame younger professionals for wanting a better work-life balance, he raised concerns at the feasibility of meeting these expectations. He said: ‘The expectations of any young professional are just an amalgamation of their experiences. Can we meet them? Probably not.’
‘I see more and more young professionals discussing composite bonding with less of a focus on health. Ultimately, they do run into issues.’
Manish Prasad, Mydentist clinical director
Aesthetics vs healthcare
One concern that reoccured was whether today’s early-career dental professionals prioritise aesthetics over healthcare in dentistry. Manish Prasad, clinical director at Mydentist, said: ‘I see more and more young professionals discussing composite bonding with less of a focus on health. Ultimately, they do run into issues.’
Dental nurse Roxi James added: ‘Social media has played a huge role in this. People come in wanting just whitening when there’s much more that needs to be done.’
Delegate and dentolegal advisor Joe Ingham described a ‘two-tier system’ – ‘some people can’t access the basics while others are having high level aesthetic treatment.’
However Ben Atkins, past president of the Oral Health Foundation, suggested that ‘health might mean something different to different generations’. He continued: ‘What does healthy actually look like? Perhaps the answer is in redefining what good looks like.’
Roshni Karia concluded: ‘Aesthetics is a part of health. Fundamentally we need to put dentistry back into the whole of healthcare. Graduates want to have a stable career with earning potential and they see that in aesthetics.’
The importance of integrated dentistry with whole-body health was echoed by Colin Melville. He said: ‘Most training is body system oriented, while many patients have comorbidities.’
Further progression and development
Manish Prasad felt that professionals might be more likely to focus on oral healthcare if they saw development opportunities in this area. Brid Hendron said: ‘A good shared start would be having the opportunity to progress within your career in the NHS. Right now, people can’t imagine a rewarding career in the NHS.’
Ultimately, most of the attendees agreed that it was crucial to ensure that dental professionals have opportunities to continually learn and progress once their careers have begun. As Catherine Rutland put it: ‘We tend to focus on getting to the point of registration and forget about development after that.’
Rhiannon Jones said that dental hygienists may be deterred from training to be dental therapists as they may actually take a pay cut in therapy roles. She advised addressing the motivation behind development to incentivise progression.
On the other hand, Roxi James advised against pressuring dental nurses to seek career progression. She said: ‘People always ask: “What’s next?” when really I’m happy as a dental nurse.’
Tom Ferris supported this point, saying: ‘If you’re happy as a dental nurse, be a dental nurse. You don’t always have to be becoming something else.’
‘We’ve done an awful lot of talking. Why don’t we just deliver the solution?’
Yvonne Shaw, senior public health lead for children, young people and families
Reflection
A criticism of previous Dental Leadership Network meetings has been that little concrete action takes place as a result of the discussions. Yvonne Shaw, senior public health lead for children, young people and families, commented: ‘We’ve done an awful lot of talking. Why don’t we just deliver the solution?’
In response to these concerns, the most recent event featured a ‘key takeaways’ session, designed to help the leaders reflect on the day and choose actions to take forward. Many of the attendees hold positions of significant power in dentistry and are well placed to instigate change.
Some of the suggested actions included:
- Writing to public health consultants or the chief dental officer for England to share the concerns raised
- Clearly define what success looks like
- Bring stakeholders together to create an action plan.
The next Dental Leadership Network event will take place on 17 June 2025, with the topic yet to be announced.
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