Your NHS dentistry and oral health update 

10 November 2025 

A focus on Mouth Cancer Action Month

In this issue, we also share information about our Chief Dental Officer’s webinar on 12 November. Please join us to hear valuable insights into the student and trainee experience across a variety of oral healthcare professions.

We also discuss recent guidance updates from the General Dental Council, World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week and the Urgent Dental Care Incentive Scheme. In October, the Association of Dental Hospitals published its response to the 10-Year Health Plan. This welcomes the strategic direction outlined in the Plan, in particular its emphasis on neighbourhood care, prevention and digital transformation.

Plus, the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme is open for applications for its next cohort. This is an exciting opportunity for successful applicants to gain access to expert mentoring, as well as a network of healthcare leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

Finally, I am proud to introduce this edition’s ‘Word of Mouth’ contributor Professor Charlotte Jeavons. She talks to us about her impressive career path and the mindset that has propelled her from strength to strength.

Kind regards,
Jason Wong

Mouth Cancer Action Month 2025 – Spot the Signs Early

November marks Mouth Cancer Action Month, the UK’s annual campaign led by the Oral Health Foundation to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of mouth cancer and promote early detection.

Every year, more than 10,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with mouth cancer, and over 3,000 lose their lives. Newly diagnosed cases in the UK have increased by over 30% in the past decade, making mouth cancer one of the fastest-rising cancers in the country. Almost half of all cases are still being diagnosed at stage III or IV, when treatment is more complex and survival outcomes are poorer.

Early diagnosis saves lives – when detected early, survival rates can reach 90%, compared with less than 50% when diagnosed late. Yet awareness of mouth cancer remains low among the public, and chances for opportunistic detection are often missed.

This campaign calls on everyone across the oral healthcare team to play their part. Routine dental visits are a vital opportunity to identify suspicious lesions, discuss risk factors and encourage patients to check their mouths regularly. By reinforcing key prevention messages, oral health professionals can make an enormous difference.

Key risk factors are tobacco use, alcohol consumption and HPV infection. Reducing exposure to these risks – alongside public education and consistent messaging – is central to reversing current trends.

Visit the Oral Health Foundation’s website for a range of campaign materials to support practices, hospitals and local health systems, including patient leaflets, posters and digital assets for use on websites and social media.

Mouth Cancer Foundation celebrates 20th anniversary and Awareness Walk

Jason Wong took part in the Mouth Cancer Foundation’s Awareness Walk in Richmond during September. He joined around 250 others to raise awareness and funds for mouth cancer. The Mouth Cancer Foundation is also hosting a ‘Walk from Home’ event until 30 November.

The charity celebrated its 20th anniversary in May 2025. It was founded by Dr Vinod Joshi, a maxillofacial surgeon in West Yorkshire. He developed an online resource about oral cancer that provides information and support to patients and their families.

Chief Dental Officer's webinar - Wednesday 12 November

Join us for the fourth in our series of CDO webinars on Wednesday 12 November 2025, from 6pm – 7:30pm.

This webinar will put a spotlight on the opportunities and challenges faced by colleagues training to become oral health professionals. We will hear from students and trainees across the skill mix, to ensure a breadth of experiences are shared.

We will then gain an insight into clinical education delivery and career portfolios from the perspective of the Dental Schools Council. Finally, the impact of equality, diversity and inclusion on oral healthcare training will be explored with the Diversity in Dentistry Action Group.

We aim to hold webinars every two months.

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Urgent dental care incentive scheme

On 25 September 2025, NHS England launched the urgent dental care incentive (UDCI) scheme to help support the government's commitment to securing 700,000 more urgent dental care appointments. This in-year financial incentive scheme, which runs until 31 March 2026, is for mandatory services contract-holders. It aims to bolster the additional capacity that integrated care boards (ICBs) have already established. Registration for providers to participate in the scheme has now closed. Read more about the scheme.

World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week

Take a look at these specific dental resources:

• Dental antimicrobial stewardship toolkit
• Keep Antimicrobials Working website
• Dental Stewardship Steering Group – NHS Scotland

Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag

Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag (RADF) is a national record which indicates that reasonable adjustments are required for an individual. It optionally includes details of their significant impairments, key adjustments that should be considered and underlying conditions.

The Equality Act (2010) places a legal duty on health and care services to make provisions to ensure that services are accessible to people with disabilities. The ISN Standard states that RADF should be recorded and shared.

For more information, visit the NHS Digital website and Future NHS.

Updates from the General Dental Council

The General Dental Council has recently updated key publications for the profession:

The Scope of Practice Guidance has been revised, following a comprehensive review and collaboration with dental professionals, education providers, indemnifiers and other key stakeholders. The revised guidance provides greater clarity on existing boundaries for the current dental professional titles, better supporting them to use their professional judgement within these boundaries for the benefit of patients. These updates came into effect on 1 November 2025.

The revised Standards for Education have been published in the first comprehensive update since 2015. These standards come into effect from the 2026/27 academic year. They outline the expected requirements of all programmes that lead to registration and form the framework of quality assurance for dental education across the UK. The OCDO is pleased to see the addition of five important new areas, including student and staff wellbeing.

The OCDO remains committed towards ensuring the delivery of safer dental services for patients and colleagues and developing a just and learning culture. We are aiming to embed this approach beginning at a student level and engaging with stakeholders including the British Dental Student Association, British Dental Industry Association and the General Dental Council to do so.

Public Health Research programme- supervised toothbrushing

The National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Public Health Research programme is looking to fund research into the effectiveness of the national targeted supervised toothbrushing programme for 3 to 5 years olds in the 20% most deprived areas of England.

Find out more and apply by 9 December.

Applications open for NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme

Applications are open for the next cohort of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. The programme is designed to support individuals with innovative ideas that have the potential to improve patient care and transform healthcare delivery. Three distinct programmes will be available:

• Clinical Entrepreneur Programme – for NHS staff, across the UK, with ideas to enhance patient outcomes and service delivery
• Patient Entrepreneur Programme – for patients and carers in England with lived experience and innovative solutions to healthcare challenges
• Dementia Innovators Programme – for those developing impactful solutions for people affected by dementia

Successful applicants will gain access to expert mentoring, tailored education, and a network of healthcare leaders, entrepreneurs and investors. Find out more and apply by 28 November 2025.

Join the CEP Prep Sessions and in person event to get application ready. For more information, email cep@aru.ac.uk.

Global Oral Health & Climate Action Conference

The 4th Global Oral Health and Climate Action Conference provides an important opportunity for the oral health community to engage in a global discourse on climate change. It creates a platform to raise awareness and knowledge about oral and planetary health, and the impact of climate change on dental research, education and practice.

On 17 November, join a session focusing on Minimum Intervention Oral Care (MIOC) and Sustainability Nexus. This will showcase potential transformation opportunities to strengthen the integration of oral health into health systems and possible innovations in financing.

View the conference programme.

Word of Mouth

Professor Charlotte Jeavons, Head of School of Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich and 2024-25 President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD), shares her journey from Dental Nurse to Professor of Dental Public Health Practice. Charlotte has also shown leadership in several of the OCDO workstreams and is a key part of the CDO’s associations and societies steering group.

I passed the National Examining Board for Dental Nurses (NEBDN) exam for ‘dental surgery assistants’ in 1993. At this time, there was no registration for dental nurses and no real career path, with the exception of a few limited hygiene training places. Back then, our profession talked about professionalism, scope of practice, and how to achieve skill mix. Despite progress being made over the years, we need to do more to encourage people like me to realise their full potential. Moving from Dental Nurse to Professor is not easy but I urge members of the oral health workforce not to limit themselves, or others, to their current clinical title. Skills can be developed, qualifications can be gained, and scope of practice can be increased.

As a Professor I use all of the knowledge and skills I have developed over the last 30 years, including those rooted in dental nursing (which I have maintained through General Dental Council registration), and those that are core public health honed through study and practice. To these I have added skills we don’t often talk about: resilience, overcoming prejudice, ability to make paths where no career path exist, underpinned by a very healthy dollop of sustained hard work!

To realise the professionalism, practice, and skill mix in our profession that we have been discussing for more than three decades we need to recognise, develop, and support the talents of everyone in the oral health workforce and look beyond their title, lest we limit ourselves and colleagues, and more importantly what the oral health workforce can collectively achieve.

Pictured below: Professor Charlotte Jeavons, as a dental nurse in 1999 (left), as President of BASCD 2024-2025 (right).

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Special focus bulletins 

The Office of the Chief Dental Officer and the NHS England team regularly produce 'special focus bulletins' on clinical priorities and key aspects of patient care. These bulletins summarise the key information dental teams need to know and act as a refresher, combining best practice, expert opinion and useful resources. If you would like to suggest a topic for a future special focus bulletin please email the CDO's team at England.CDOExecutive@nhs.net