Directors and Trustees

Janet Clarke has recently stepped down as Deputy Chief Dental Officer for England. Her career has included chairing the BDA’s Central Committee for Community and Public Health Dentistry and leading negotiations to introduce the new contract for salaried primary care dentists, establishing a new pathway for career progression.

In 2010 Janet was awarded the MBE for services to dentistry having 12 months previously been appointed by the Government to work alongside Professor Jimmy Steele in his Independent Review of NHS Dentistry. Previously, she worked as a clinical dental officer in a range of Midland health authorities before becoming Associate Director for Dental Services in 1991.

Ian Mills, Dean of FGDP(UK), is a partner in an eight-surgery dental practice in North Devon which he established from a squat in 1997.

Ian has had a varied career including roles within oral and maxillofacial surgery, undergraduate and postgraduate education, research and dental politics. He was previously an NIHR Academic Fellow in General Dental Practice and was awarded his Doctorate for research on Person-Centred Care from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry.

Ian is actively involved in primary care-based research with specific interests in patient experience of dentistry, and environmental sustainability. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at Peninsula Dental School where he continues to contribute to the undergraduate curriculum, while working part-time within clinical dentistry at his practice.

Elizabeth Kay was the Foundation Dean of Peninsula Dental School, the first new dental school in the UK for 40 years.

Before her recent retirement from her post as Faculty Associate Dean at Plymouth University University she was a Public Health Academic Consultant working regionally and nationally with Public Health England, focussing on inequalities in Oral Health. She was Programme Direcotor of an MBA in Healthcare, in collaboration with Plymouth University Business School. Elizabeth is currently a Non-Executive Director of Plymouth University Hospitals Trust and Chairs their Research Committee. She was Topic Expert to NICE Public Health Advisory Committees on dentistry and now Chairs a Nice Guideline Committee for Children with Epilepsies.

She is a Trustee and Vice Chair of the British Medical and Dental Students’ Trust and Immediate Past President and Chair of Trustees for the Oral Health Foundation. She was a member of the Equality Challenge Unit’s Athena Swan Medical Practice Committee and a judging panel member for Athena Swan. She is a member of the BDA Health and Science Committee , Editor of Evidence Based Dentistry, and a Board member of the Platform for better oral health in Europe.

Kate Gregory is a legal consultant and qualified litigator, with 25 years’ experience of regulation and governance across the public and private sectors.

After training as a solicitor, she worked as Assistant Legal Adviser to the Civil Aviation Authority, then Group Legal Adviser to National Air Traffic Services. Later moving to the Department of Health, she became lead lawyer on a number of high value contracts including a £3.5 billion procurement of surgical procedures, before moving to Sodexo as Deputy General Counsel. From 2007-14 she was Director of Legal Services for Pearson Education, with responsibility for the oversight of awarding bodies Edexcel and Pearson College, and she is currently Non-Executive Director of The Symphony Group.

Mick Horton is Immediate-Past Dean of FGDP(UK). He qualified from Manchester University in 1986, initially working in Fleetwood, Lancashire. In 1992 he purchased a mixed NHS/private practice in Caergwrle, North Wales.

Dr Horton’s experience includes being a member of the Welsh Dental Committee and managed clinical networks, twenty two years as Chair of his Local Dental Committee and ten years as the Vice-chair of his local Health Board, as well as working as postgraduate dental tutor and a dental nurse examiner.

Kevin Lewis spent twenty years in full-time general dental practice and ten further years practising part-time. He became involved in the dento-legal field in 1989, firstly as a member of the Board of Directors of Dental Protection, then as a full time dento-legal adviser and since 1998 as Dental Director. He later served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Medical Protection Society.

For 25 years, Kevin was the Associate Editor of Dental Practice and since 2006 he has been the Consultant Editor of Dentistry. He has written two textbooks on dental practice management and writes and lectures regularly all over the world.

After achieving a BA in Organisational Behaviour and Management from Brown University, she became a freelance business consultant in China before completing an MBA at INSEAD. She then spent seventeen years at management consultancy A T Kearney, delivering projects for Bupa, NHS England, pharmaceutical firms Sanofi, Merck and Takeda, the Nike Foundation and the Departments of Trade & Industry and Work and Pensions.

She later became Director of Business Operations for Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and a Non-Executive Director of engineering firm Positive Energy, and since 2013 has been a commercial advisor to small businesses including Seldoc, a GP cooperative providing out-of-hours clinical services.

Neil Sawbridge is an experienced banking and leasing Chief Financial Officer with a wide commercial background. Currently with the Bank of London & the Middle East (BLME), he was previously CFO for Wyelands Bank and CFO Europe for the American group CIT. He is a qualified accountant.