Changes At BDA Board: Returning Director Pips A Future Leader
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- Published: Friday, 16 December 2022 10:09
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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Unusually, but in common with some organisations including the British Medical Association, the BDA is both a company and a trade union.
One result of this combination is that the statutory board of directors required by company law is for the purposes of trade union law, its Principal Executive Committee (PEC) As the BDA’s decision making body, it has influence over not just the BDA but through the organisations negotiating role with the government, the working conditions of dental teams.
As nurses stand on picket lines following their vote to strike, dentists may look to their own trade union. Historically in some sectors of the economy, union leadership has tended to influence its members behaviour, including their willingness to take industrial action.
Five of the 15 PEC seats have recently come up for election, four being regionally based and one UK wide. In three of the five seats, the candidates were elected unopposed, however in the case of the UK-wide and London seats, the current incumbent was not re-elected.
Lauren Harrhy narrowly missed out on re-election coming a close second to Alison Lockyer. Indeed under the alternative vote system that is used, in the final elimination there was a gap of just 3.5 votes between the candidates. Lauren is by dento-political standards one of the PEC’s younger members. She is a GDP and principal of a mixed practice in Pontypool. Lauren has often spoken out about the pressures that dentists trying to offer NHS care in Wales are under. She is particularly well known within the profession for her concern about mental health and wellbeing within the dental team. She set up Mental Dental as a Facebook forum to support UK dentists. Shortly after she was involved in starting up the Confidental helpline, which is now a registered charity. Commenting on twitter, Lauren has said that she will carry on being a representative as before, and congratulated those who were elected.
Alison Lockyer has served on the PEC before, and is something of a veteran of dental politics.
She is principal of a practice in Leicester and is a former Chair of the GDC. She was elected to that post in December 2009 but resigned in 2011 in circumstances that remain unclear. That she was elected by the profession, and the GDC had a dental chair, illustrates the dramatic changes in the professional landscape which she and the BDA face.
One other incumbent, who holds the seat for London, Shareena Ilyas, was not re-elected, losing by only two votes. An experienced GDP, she also coaches and mentors dentists in difficulty, as well as sitting on the National Advisory Board for Human Factors in Dentistry. The London seat was won by Sushil John who is the principal of a practice in Croydon and has worked for many years as a Dental Educational Supervisor.
Overall, 14172 voting papers were issued, with the 687 returned representing a turnout of 4.8%.
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