Dental Director

The Role

Dental Director
Salary – consultant/CRUMP terms
Location – flexible, your NES office location will be agreed upon appointment

The Dental Director is a senior executive role leading nationally on the strategic direction, development and delivery of postgraduate dental education and training to regulatory standards for the dental workforce in NHS Scotland. This role contributes to improved health outcomes and the quality of services across Scotland by reshaping the health and social care workforce through education, workforce development and training, technology-enhanced learning and practice, and workforce analysis and planning to support service design and innovation including new approaches, models and locations of care.

The Dental Directorate

The delivery of postgraduate dental education is a complex challenge and the Dental Directorate works closely with Scottish Government and many partners with diverse interests and who together, contribute to the work of postgraduate education. The Dental Directorate is responsible to the NES Board via the Chief Executive and through the Board to Scottish Government for the commissioning and delivery of postgraduate dental education in Scotland. This training is delivered primarily in NHS Boards including hospitals and General Dental Practices.

Furthermore, as NES directly employs all postgraduate dental trainees, the Dental Directorate has an active management role in delivery of a high-quality employment experience for trainees working in NHS Boards.The role of the Dental Director is significant in developing robust workforce planning nationally while shaping and contributing to UK wide initiatives so that there is a highly skilled workforce with the right skills, in the right place at the right time. Working UK wide and through regular engagement with senior officials in the Scottish Government, the Dental Director works with key partners to influence national policy, develop high quality education and training initiatives and strategies for international recruitment and retention.

The Dental Directorate currently has a staffing complement of circa 203 permanent and fixed term Agenda for Change staff with a total budget of £55,563,161 million.

The Dental Director provides strategic and operational leadership to the senior cohort of Associate Postgraduate Dental Deans. Strategic educational leadership is also provided to a network of Training Programme Directors, Lay Representatives, Educational Supervisors, Clinical Supervisors, Local Training Quality Lead.

In addition to undergraduate placements and postgraduate programmes across health and care professions, NES provides a wide range of educational and training resources and has dedicated training staff in every NHSS Board, supporting training both face to face and online. A major focus is the provision of technology enhanced, flexible, efficient training including use of advanced technologies e.g. virtual reality, simulation etc. This requires upskilling the extensive network of sessional trainers working across the NHS so that they can confidently deliver education and training. It also means ensuring the digital capability of learners.

The Dental Directorate has several roles encompassing the following specific areas:

• Operates all approved Dental Vocational Training, Dental Core Training and Specialty Training, pre and post registration dental nurse training, Orthodontic Therapy training programmes through a robust system of educational governance.
• Recruits to and manages the postgraduate training of dentists in Dental Vocational, Dental Core and Dental Specialty training programmes.
• Supports the education of undergraduate dental students through the distribution and performance management of the Additional Costs of Teaching (ACT funding).
• Manages study leave, clinical academic training, flexible training, careers guidance, trainer development and provides support for dental registrants in difficulty.
• Manages the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme.