Division of Child Dental Health

At the heart of the Division is a commitment to the oral health of children and young people. There are three specialist clinical disciplines within the Division of Child Dental Health and these comprise, Dental Public Health, Orthodontics and Paediatric Dentistry. The Division is further enriched by being the “home” of Lifecourse, Epidemiology and Population Oral Health Research Group. These four contribute to research, teaching and patient care in complementary and co-operative ways. Both University and NHS staff are involved in all these aspects.

The University staff comprises two Professors, two Consultant Senior Lecturers, one of whom is part time, three Lecturers, one in Paediatric Dentistry one in Statistics and one in Nutrition. There are five NHS Consultants, four in orthodontics and one in paediatric dentistry.

As well as its commitment to Undergraduate teaching, the Division runs a DDS in orthodontics and an MClin Dent in paediatric dentistry. In addition there are two Senior Specialist Registrars in Orthodontics with their training based in the Division with links to Bath and Taunton and two Specialist Registrars in Paediatric Dentistry. Consultants, Senior Community Dental Officers and Training Grades provide tertiary clinical services in orthodontics and paediatric dentistry in both the dental hospital and the hospitals of North Bristol, Bath and Weston Super Mare.

Those same staff are also involved in active teaching programmes at the undergraduate, taught postgraduate and continuing professional development levels, and there are a breadth of courses for both specialists and general dental practitioners.

In research, staff are associated with one or more of the research groups within the Dental School. Work over the last five years has helped to form National policy in clinical issues such as, the shape of services to be provided for children and young people with oro-facial clefting; the use of auxiliaries in the delivery of orthodontics; the management of asymptomatic third molars; the development of the oral health of children under 5 years of age, oral health of people with learning disabilities and also investigated some of the basic mechanisms involved in the development and formation of the face.

Members of the Division are also involved in a number of external bodies including the General Dental Council, the Department of Health, the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and CRANE, the National Register of Cleft Births.