Thriving environment

When I left school at the age of 16, I became a trainee dental nurse before joining Community Dental Services (CDS-CIC) in 1996. Fast forward to 2018 and I’m the senior dental nurse for the special care branch of the service, and have a number of extra postgraduate qualifications. These include sedation for dental nurses, oral health promotion, special care for dental nurses, fluoride varnish application, impression taking and radiography for dental nurses.

Always changing

I am also currently managing the mobile services across special care settings in Bedfordshire, domiciliary care for the NHS and private services, general anaesthetic sessions for special care patients and preventative fluoride varnish programmes at all Bedfordshire special schools. My role and scope of practice is always changing within CDS-CIC, but that’s what I love most about the job. In addition to my clinical duties, I am an employee director for the board, as CDS-CIC is an employee owned social enterprise, and support our charity CDS Action as a trustee, secretary and treasurer. This is a role I have had the pleasure of being elected into for the last six years. Naturally, the diversity and complexity of my role means no two working days are the same, but it usually goes a little something like this: