Dentaid have been a charity for over 25 years, originally starting off refurbishing dental equipment to be sent overseas and then by organising voluntary trips for UK dental professionals worldwide to countries with poor access to dental care. 

The need for activities in the UK is a more recent addition to the charity, with school-based project, Bright Bites, and since 2015, free clinics and mobile dental services to vulnerable groups in the UK such as people who experience homelessness. We now run clinics up and down the UK in our fleet of 4 vehicles looking after several patient groups including:

The charity's mission statement is:

My new role is a brand new position within Dentaid: UK Clinical Director. I have been involved with Dentaid now for many years, as a volunteer and having the conversation about inclusion oral health. During my specialist training and MSc, they kindly supported me when completing my thesis looking at how we design dental services for people who experience homelessness. As I was coming towards the end of my training, we continued to have the conversation about how I could come on board to help further champion the charity's activities and expand what they were able to offer. 

The role is basically my dream job within dentistry! My first involvements within inclusion oral health were setting up a homeless dental service within a Community Dental Services, similarly using a mobile dental surgery. You can read about how I did that here. I thrived off this experience although certainly there were challenges, particularly around some of the bureaucracy that was unavoidable as part of a large NHS organisation commissioned for a very particular purpose. So when Dentaid offered me this role I couldn't say no!!!

I get asked this increasingly more so every day and it's wonderful to see the kindness and generosity of those working within our profession! Whatever your role within dentistry, there is a way you can give something back and support the work we do at Dentaid and we are grateful for everyone's help; no matter if you're a dentist, nurse, receptionist, technician, educator or work in the industry. So how can you help?

Whether you want to go abroad (we have trips now open again to countries such as Cambodia, Malawi, Uganda and Morocco), or more locally for our mobile dental clinics up and down the UK. We can find ways for all professionals to volunteer from dentists, to nurses, to technicians and hygienists and we will support you in finding the best way to use your skills. We also are happy to take other volunteers who can help with medical histories or help in other ways, just get in contact!

Contact us here to register your interest. 

Do you have any unused equipment or stock (within dates) or are refurbishing your surgeries? Are you a dental supply company who would like to help us with any equipment or stock for clinics? We would be so grateful for any donations, big or small, that we can use on overseas or UK projects. Our warehouse is based in Southampton, but donations can sometimes be dropped off at our mobile clinics up and down the UK or for large items we can arrange collection. 

Please contact us here if you would like to donate any equipment or stock. 

We'd love to support anyone who wished to fundraise for us via an event or course and we do have other events you can join such as our annual Skydives. We can help supply fundraising packs for your event, T shirts, banners etc. so if you're an individual, company, dental society or team please get in touch if you have any ideas. We also accept general donations if you wish to leave a one-off donation. 

Please contact us here.