Recruitment of Board member (Faculty of Dental Technology and Clinical Dental Technology)

The College is seeking a new board member for its Faculty of Dental Technology and Clinical Dental Technology, and all dental technicians and clinical dental technicians are invited to apply.

The Faculty of Dental Technology and Clinical Dental Technology is a constituency of the College automatically comprising all members who are dental technicians or clinical dental technicians. Advising and reporting to the elected College Council, the Faculty Board advances the interests of these members within the College as a discrete professional group.

Faculty Board members are appointed for renewable three-year terms, and the appointee will be expected to attend at least three Faculty Board meetings per year from June 2025 – June 2028.

Candidates will need to be an Associate Member, Full Member, Associate Fellow or Fellow of the College at the time of application, and anyone interested in applying who is not yet a member of the College is advised to allow at least two weeks for their membership application to be fully processed prior to applying for this role.

The role is voluntary, with any essential expenses covered. A role profile is available below.

Applications should be made by email, headed “Board member (Faculty of Dental Technology and Clinical Dental Technology)”, to [email protected], attaching a CV and covering letter addressing the person specification. 

The closing date for applications is Sunday 4 May 2025.

Subscribe to receive to our monthly newsletter

Recruitment of Board Chair (Faculty of Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy)

The College is seeking the next Chair of the Board of its Faculty of Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy, and all dental hygienists and dental therapists are invited to consider applying.

The Faculty of Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy is a constituency of the College automatically comprising all members who are dental hygienists or dental therapists. The interests of these members as a discrete professional group are advanced within the College by both a voting representative on the elected College Council and by a Faculty Board which advises and reports to Council.

Membership of the Faculty Board is appointed by Council, including the Chair, who works closely with the President and other Faculty Board Chairs in realising College priorities.

The Chair will be appointed for a non-renewable three-year term from June 2025 – June 2028, during which they will be expected to attend the three formal meetings of Council each year, and to coordinate at least three meetings of their Faculty Board annually with these dates. Council holds full day hybrid meetings, with attendance in person preferred.

Candidates will need to be an Associate Member, Full Member, Associate Fellow or Fellow of the College at the time of application, and anyone interested in applying who is not yet a member of the College is advised to allow at least two weeks for their membership application to be fully processed prior to applying for this role.

The role is voluntary, with essential expenses covered. A role profile is available below.

Applications should be made by email, headed “Board Chair (Faculty of Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy)”, to [email protected], attaching a CV and covering letter addressing the person specification.

The closing date for applications is Sunday 4 May 2025.

Interviews will be held online from the week beginning 12 May (tbc) with a selection panel convened by Council, and the appointee should be available to attend the College Council meeting on Friday 13 June 2025.

If you have questions or would like a confidential discussion about the role, please contact Simon Thornton-Wood PhD, Chief Executive of the College, at [email protected]

Subscribe to receive to our monthly newsletter

London meet-and-greet

Friday 9 – Saturday 10 October 2026, 9.00am – 5.00pm, London

ExCeL LondonRoyal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway, London E16 1XL

The College invites all dental professionals to visit its exhibition stand at Dentistry Show London 2026.

College members and non-members alike are encouraged to come and introduce themselves, to find out more about the College and have their queries answered.

Perhaps you have questions about your membership or how to access your benefits? Or want to know whether you’re eligible for Full Membership, Associate Fellowship or Fellowship? Or you wonder what Life Fellowship is, our Certified Practitioner status or how to add your qualifications to the Member Register?

Maybe you’re a former member of FGDP(UK) uncertain of your College status, or the correct way to present your Faculty post-nominals?

Or perhaps you’re a non-member who’s not yet heard much about the College and just wants to find out why we were set up, what our plans are or how we can help you in your career?

Whatever your query, senior College members and staff will be there throughout the conference to help you out, and have live access to College systems to help solve membership queries on the spot.

Or even if you don’t have a query, we’d be delighted to meet you!

The College will also be an education partner for the show, hosting CPD lectures.

Dentistry Show London gives you access to over 180 exhibitors and 4,000 fellow dental professionals, and offers over 100 CPD lectures in all. It’s FREE to attend for all registered dental professionals.

A registration link will be added below once registration is open.

Sign up to our monthly newsletter

Birmingham meet-and-greet

Friday 15 May (9am-5.30pm) & Saturday 16 May 2026 (9am-5pm)Birmingham

Hall 5, National Exhibition Centre, North Ave, Marston Green, Birmingham B40 1NT

The College invites all dental professionals to visit its exhibition stand at the British Dental Conference and Dentistry Show 2026

College members and non-members alike are encouraged to come and introduce themselves, to find out more about the College and have their queries answered.

Perhaps you have questions about your membership or how to access your benefits? Or want to know whether you’re eligible for Full Membership, Associate Fellowship or Fellowship? Or you wonder how to download your membership certificate, what Certified Practitioner status is, or how to add your qualifications to the Member Register?

Maybe you’re a former member of FGDP(UK) uncertain of your College status, or the correct way to present your Faculty post-nominals?

Or perhaps you’re a non-member who’s not yet heard much about the College and just wants to find out why we were set up, what our plans are or how we can help you in your career?

Whatever your query, senior College members and staff will be there throughout the conference to help you out, and we’ll have live access to our systems to help solve membership queries on the spot.

Or even if you don’t have a query, we’d be delighted to meet you!

The College will also be an education partner, hosting CPD lectures.

The British Dental Conference and Dentistry Show is the UK’s largest dental event, giving you access to 400 exhibitors and 10,000 fellow dental professionals, and offering over 200 lectures across 11 CPD theatres.

Registration for BDCDS26 will be FREE for all dental professionals.

A link will be added below once registration is open.

Subscribe to receive our monthly newsletter

British Dental Conference & Dentistry Show

Friday 15 May (9am-5.30pm) & Saturday 16 May 2026 (9am-5pm)Birmingham

Hall 5, National Exhibition Centre, North Ave, Marston Green, Birmingham B40 1NT

The College will once again be an education partner for the British Dental Conference & Dentistry Show (BDCDS).

We will welcome members and non-members alike to our CPD lectures, with experts in their fields sharing their knowledge on a range of subjects and giving advice to support the professional development of the whole dental team. Details of the lecture programme will be announced in due course.

College representatives will be available throughout the show at the CGDent exhibition stand to talk to delegates about our vision for the profession, the benefits of membership and fellowship, and to answer your questions.

BDCDS is the UK’s largest dental event. Attendees will have access to over 200 CPD lectures in all across multiple lecture theatres, and the opportunity to network among 10,000 dentists, dental therapists, dental hygienists, dental nurses, practice managers, dental technicians and laboratory owners.

Co-located with Dental Technology Showcase, it is also a great opportunity to meet new and existing suppliers, with 400 exhibitors on site, including all the industry leaders.

Registration for BDCDS26 will be FREE for all dental professionals.

A link will be added below once registration is open.

Subscribe to receive our monthly newsletter

Nominations open for Council elections

Nominations are now open for elections to six seats on the College Council, and all Full Members, Associate Fellows and Fellows of the College are invited to nominate themselves as candidates.

Nominations are sought for the following seats:

  • East of Scotland
  • National representative
  • Overseas representative
  • South East & South West Thames
  • Wessex & Oxford
  • West & North of Scotland

Candidates for regional seats must live or work within that region, and be registered with that region with CGDent. Candidates for the National seat must live or work in the UK, and have a registered UK address with CGDent. Candidates for the Overseas seat must practice dentistry wholly outside the UK, and have a registered overseas address with CGDent.

All eligible members as at 16 January 2025 have been emailed a link to the nominations website by the College’s election services provider, Mi-Voice. If you are interested in standing for election, you will need to complete the nomination process via that link, where you will be asked for further information, the names of two supporting members, and to submit an election statement.

Members may stand simultaneously for both the National seat and the regional seat for which they are eligible (if applicable) by submitting a separate nomination form for each seat.

Further information on the role, nomination requirements and the election timetable can be found via the button below.

The deadline for receipt of nominations is Sunday 16 February 2025.

If you think you might like to put yourself forward as a candidate and would like further information before deciding, we would be pleased to have a confidential discussion and to answer any questions you may have about the role and the process. Please get in touch via [email protected]

Subscribe to receive to our monthly newsletter

20 years of Training Standards in Implant Dentistry

Thursday 5 February 2026, London

Candidates awaiting conferral of awards by the former FGDP(UK) at a Diplomates’ Day

The Court Room, Cutlers’ Hall, Warwick Lane, London EC4M 7BR

This event will mark 20 years since first publication of Training Standards in Implant Dentistry by the former Faculty of General Dental Practice UK (FGDP).

It will also celebrate the Faculty’s significant contribution to postgraduate education through its Diploma in Implant Dentistry programme, and highlight the College’s role in raising standards in the field through the publication of mentoring guidelines and dedicated journal issues, the launch of the Register of Mentors in Implant Dentistry, and the creation of a Career Pathway for Implant Dentistry (details of which will be announced in due course).

Tickets for this event are not yet available; a booking link will be added shortly.

This event will be followed at 6pm by the College’s Fellows’ Winter Reception, including the Presentations of Associate Fellows and Fellows, upstairs in the Livery Hall. This is a chargeable event with separate ticketing arrangements.

It will be preceded in the same venue by the the Lindsay Society’s Lilian Lindsay memorial lecture. This is a chargeable event with separate ticketing arrangements.

Subscribe to receive to our monthly newsletter

Parliamentary briefing on preventative oral healthcare

Earlier this week, the College and Haleon presented The Dental Health Barometer – the organisations’ joint report on improving the provision of preventative oral healthcare – at a breakfast briefing held in Parliament.

Jon Elliott, Roshni Karia MCGDent, Simon Thornton-Wood PhD, Kate Fabrikant FCGDent

The meeting was one of a series of discussions being held with stakeholders to communicate and gather support for the recommendations identified in the report, which are based on the experience and insight of general dental professionals on how to bridge the gap between intentions and practical delivery of preventative care.

The research underlying the report included a survey of 2,000 UK dental patients and over 500 dental professionals which highlighted inconsistencies in the provision of preventative oral healthcare advice, and rich discussions held with 77 oral health professionals, in all dental team roles, in focus group meetings hosted at eight general dental practices throughout the UK.

Attendees at the meeting were:

  • Sadik Al-Hassan MP (Labour, North Somerset)
  • David Arnold (Director of Communications, Oral Health Foundation)
  • Lewis Atkinson MP (Labour, Sunderland Central)
  • Professor Avijit Banerjee FCGDent (Professor of Cariology & Operative Dentistry at King’s College London and Chair of the College’s Faculty of Dentists)
  • Jon Elliott (Head of Corporate Affairs for Northern Europe, Haleon)
  • Dr Kate Fabrikant FCGDent (Medical Affairs Director for Northern Europe, Haleon)
  • Dr Elizabeth Fisher (Programme Lead for Children and Young People’s, Nuffield Trust)
  • Dr Roshni Karia MCGDent (President of the College)
  • Professor Philip Preshaw (President, British Society of Periodontology)
  • Simon Thornton-Wood PhD (Chief Executive of the College)
  • Dr Jason Wong MBE FCGDent (Chief Dental Officer, NHS England)
  • Philip Worsfold (Head of Dental Public Health, Department of Health and Social Care)



Subscribe to receive to our monthly newsletter

Why I became a College benefactor and philanthropist

Dr Tom Bereznicki FCGDent, founder of the Tom Bereznicki Charitable Education Foundation and a major donor to the College, talks to Professor Sir Nairn Wilson CBE FCGDent, President Emeritus, about his motivation to put something back into the profession

Tom Bereznicki FCGDent (left) and Sir Nairn Wilson CBE FCGDent (right)

Nairn Wilson: Tom, what motivated you to become a Founder of the College, the College’s first major benefactor, and a significant College legator? 

Tom Bereznicki: In recent years, I have been increasingly anxious to find ways to put something back into the dental profession, with emphases on making good some of the deficiencies in undergraduate dental education, encouraging early career dentists to develop their skills and knowledge to better meet the ever-increasing expectations of patients, and to enhance the standing and status of dentistry, both in healthcare in general, and in the eyes of the public.

The creation of the College, intended Royal College of General Dentistry, was a bold move to give oral healthcare professionals the benefits enjoyed by all those in healthcare who have their own independent Royal College – career pathways with recognition of enhanced skills, standards set by the profession for the profession, and a community of practice, together with, and very importantly in the case of CGDent, a much-needed, unified voice for the whole of the profession.

Also, I share the vision of the College to elevate the importance of oral health in the eyes of other healthcare professions, politicians and the public. The College initiative was one I identified with and considered worthy of my support, both to get it started and help secure its future.

Nairn Wilson: What are the aims, objectives and aspirations of your Educational Foundation?

Tom Bereznicki: My Foundation was created to support recently graduated and early career dentists and therapists to acquire knowledge and skills they were unlikely to have acquired in their undergraduate training, but which are needed to succeed in everyday practice. The focus is on aesthetic dentistry, occlusion and related aspects of periodontal health, all of which are fundamental to contemporary routine dental care.

Given my experience as a part-time clinical teacher and the interactions I have with newly qualified colleagues, I am increasingly concerned by the disconnect between undergraduate curricula and the reality of everyday clinical practice. Graduates who have not been instructed in at least the basics of aesthetic dentistry, underpinned by a detailed knowledge of tooth morphology, and have little if any idea of how to recognise and diagnose occlusal discrepancies, let alone manage them, are destined to run into all sorts of difficulties in the management of patients.

My Foundation cannot reach out to all new graduates, early career dentists and dental therapists, but it is hoped that the activities of the Foundation, specifically its competitions, will encourage much-needed personal development amongst those embarking on their careers in dentistry, with an emphasis on the importance of interactive, high quality, face-to-face learning. While online learning has a place, and there are many good programmes, much of what new graduates and early career oral healthcare professionals access, typically on their phones, is advertorial material, often presented by self-professed experts with limited experience, either lacking an evidence-base, or frankly wrong and potentially harmful to patients. Determining what is good quality online learning material is challenging, especially for colleagues transitioning to independent practice.   

Nairn Wilson: What is the intended synergy between your Foundation and the College? 

Tom Bereznicki: The Foundation is an independent body which seeks to work in partnership with other organisations and the dental industry to realise its aims and objectives. The link with the College is intended to introduce new graduates and early career oral healthcare professionals to CGDent, and what the College does and can do for them and the profession.

It is hoped that young colleagues, especially those who benefit from the activities of the Foundation, will appreciate the benefits of membership of the College, with a view, over time, to being recognised as an accomplished practitioner – a Fellow of the College. Young colleagues need to appreciate the value and importance of being part of the forward-looking College – part of the new, increasingly powerful, unified voice for dentistry, contributing to standards set by the profession for the profession, taking advantage of a recognised career pathway, mentoring and much more.

Nairn Wilson: With the need to grow and further develop the College, with one of its immediate, pressing priority being eligibility for the award of a Royal Charter, what is your message to Fellows who are not yet donors to the College?

Tom Bereznicki: The College has achieved a great deal from, in effect, a standing start three years ago, and still has a lot to do to achieve its potential, let alone operate on a level playing field with the long-established Royal Colleges, which history tells us, benefited from huge support during their development. There is no ‘something for nothing’. Dentistry must help itself to justify Royal recognition of its own independent college.

Rather than apply a development levy to subscriptions, it is better and more powerful to grow by means of voluntary donations. Yes, these are challenging times for colleagues, but it is also a challenging time for our profession, which needs parity with other mainstream healthcare professions, new UK-wide leadership and direction and recognition in general healthcare and in the eyes of the public – all the things the CGDent aims to deliver. This surely is worthy of support, specifically by those the College has recognised to be leaders in the field.

Nairn Wilson: Tom, thank you for your views and comments, which I very much hope will be read and taken to heart by both all members of the College and colleagues yet to join CGDent. Thank you also for your tremendous ongoing support of the College, which would not be where it is today without your contribution, nor without the support provided by all existing donors.  

Tom Bereznicki is a Fellow and Founder Member of the College and a College legator. The Tom Bereznicki Dental Education Foundation supports the CGDent-GC Award for Foundation Trainees, the Tom Bereznicki Award for Advanced Aesthetic Dentistry and the upcoming occlusion and perio-occlusion symposia for early career dentists.

Sign up to the College’s monthly newsletter

Calling all PDJ authors

The College is reaching out to all past contributors to the Primary Dental Journal – authors, guest editors, peer reviewers, book reviewers and editorial board members – who are invited to attend a reception marking the impending 50th issue.

The event, The Primary Dental Journal: celebrating 50 issues, will take place in London on Thursday 30 January 2025.

First published in 2012, the PDJ was produced for nine years by the Faculty of General Dental Practice of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FGDP), with the College taking over following the transfer-in of the FGDP over in 2021.

The College has distributed invitations to the reception by email to those PDJ contributors for whom it holds a functioning email address. However, the College does not hold functioning email addresses for all past PDJ contributors, and would like to encourage those to whom this applies to get in touch.

If you are a current or past member of the College and have previously contributed to the PDJ, we have sent an invitation to the email address you have most recently registered with us. We also hold email addresses for those who subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter and those who have registered for an account on the College website (for purposes such as viewing our standards and guidance publications). We have sent invitations to such individuals via those email addresses where we have determined that they belong to a PDJ contributor.

We also hold email addresses for non-member contributors whose papers were published by the College rather than the former FGDP (i.e. those appearing in issues from volume 10, issue 2 [Summer 2021] onwards). Unless subsequently updated via online account registration, these are the email addresses used for correspondence with the Managing Editor of the PDJ prior to publication of the relevant paper. We have sent invitations to these contributors using these email addresses.

However, the College may not hold an email address for any PDJ contributor whose paper was published prior to Summer 2021 (i.e. in volumes 1-9 or volume 10 issue 1) and who is not a member, newsletter subscriber or website account holder. We may also not have been able to verify that a particular non-member email address registered through our website belonged to a given PDJ contributor.

If you are a past PDJ contributor but are not sure which issue your paper was published in, please search the online PDJ Library. You do not need to be a member or otherwise logged in to perform a search.

If you were a contributor to an issue of PDJ published by the College but your email address has changed since publication of your paper(s), please let us know at [email protected]

If you are a past PDJ contributor for whom for any reason we may not hold a verified email address, we would love to hear from you, irrespective of whether you wish to attend this particular event – please write to us at [email protected]

Subscribe to receive our monthly newsletter