Dentaid The Dental Charity is pleased to announce Dr Catherine Rutland has joined as Head of Policy.

As the charity’s work and profile has grown rapidly in recent years, this new role will help Dentaid increase its influence at Government level and to champion the charity’s approach across the dental sector and further afield.

In the 10 years since Dentaid started working in the UK, the charity has become expert in delivering outreach mobile services that meet the needs of the most vulnerable communities, including people experiencing homelessness, survivors of addiction, harm and abuse and families facing health inequalities.

The charity has a key role to play in the delivery of services and giving a voice to those who experience physical, practical and emotional barriers to accessing mainstream dental services, or professionals who support people facing these difficulties.

Catherine will represent Dentaid at a range of events in the dental sector and beyond and meet with MPs, commissioners, public health teams and stakeholders across the dental industry to show the long-term benefit of Dentaid’s work across the UK. As a result, awareness of Dentaid’s nationwide projects and impact will increase as the charity raises funds to help more people than ever before – with more than 1,300 mobile charity dental clinics taking place in this financial year.

Catherine will work alongside the charity’s clinical team led by UK Clinical Director Dr Natalie Bradley.

With a career spanning work as a dentist, coach and mentor, Catherine has run her own dental practice and more recently was clinical director for Denplan, where she represented Denplan and dentistry to MPs and other influential organisations in the dental and healthcare sectors.

She has previously supported Denplan and Dentaid’s oral health education programme BrightBites, delivering sessions to children in schools and advocating the importance of dental health education from a young age.

Catherine said: “I’m hugely excited to be working at Dentaid in a new role.

“I love to learn and love to develop and can take the opportunity to learn from great people who have so much experience so I can provide some really positive benefits to the charity.

“As Dentaid grows – and it’s growing so fast – my focus is on making clear the really important things that the charity is doing, so we can make sure that we raise awareness at a wider and higher level with greater stakeholder engagement about why the work we do as a charity is so necessary and the purpose it provides.

“I’ve already seen the impact that it creates for people in need, to really help in some ways to change their lives when they have nowhere else that they can go, and that is amazing.”

Andy Evans, CEO of Dentaid the Dental Charity, added: “It’s fantastic to have someone with as much knowledge about dentistry as Catherine joining us as Head of Policy.

“Having her skills and expertise to draw on will have a huge impact in allowing us to comment on and define policy in the industry in the future.

“At a time when the industry is going through huge changes, it’s important that Dentaid is able to shout loud about its work and the transformative impact it can have for so many people.”

Catherine will also continue as Director of Policy and Research at the Association of Dental Groups alongside her role at Dentaid.