Wales Committee for Community Dentistry

The objective of WCCD:

This is a Standing Committee of the Principle Executive Committee (PEC). Subject to the authority of the PEC, which shall be renewable annually, to represent the interests of dentists working in the Community Dental Service in Wales and to make representations on their behalf to their employers and to the Welsh Assembly Government.

WCCD members

Voting members - One elected seat for each of the Local Health Boards specified below:

Betsi Cadwalader Health Board
Hywel Dda Health Board
Powys Teaching Health Board
Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board
Aneurin Bevan Health Board
Cardiff and Vale Health Board (which also runs the CDS within Cwm Taf)

Clinical Director - One elected seat pan-Wales, usually chosen by the Welsh Clinical Directors group.

Clinical Members

Iona (Catrin) Tomos, Aneurin Bevan Health Board

Susan Betts, Cardiff and Vale Health Boards

David Johnson, Cwm Taf

David Barber, Betsi Cadwalader Health Board

Manolis Roditakis, Hywel Dda Health Board

Matthew Allan, Powys Teaching Health Board

Chris Ball, Swansea Bay

Welsh Clinical Directors Group

Vickie Jones

Non-voting members

The Chair and Deputy Chair of the Principal Executive Committee
One member nominated by the Community Dental Services Group in Wales
The Chair of the Accredited Representatives in Wales

The Committee may co-opt a Consultant or Trainee in Dental Public Health and up to two other members.

Principal Executive Committee Members
Eddie Crouch, Chair of the PEC
Peter Crooks, Vice Chair of the PEC

Member of the Welsh General Dental Practices Committee (WGDPC)

Russell Gidney (Chair)

Public Health Wales

Anup Karki

Chair of the Accredited Representative in Wales

Holly Brown

Quorum

Four members of whom two must be elected members.

WCCD member profiles

Manolis Roditakis

Chair WCCD

Manolis Roditakis graduated from Athens Dental School in 2002. In Greece, he gained experience in the Armed Forces, in Private Practice and as a volunteer dentist with a charity at his hometown in Chania, Crete. Since 2010, he has lived in the UK.

Manolis has obtained clinical experience in NHS and Private practice in London. He completed a Certificate in Paediatric Dentistry at the Eastman Dental Institute, UCL and then joined the Public Dental Service in Shetland islands, Scotland. During his time in Scotland, he obtained the NHS Education for Scotland Remote & Rural Fellowship for further postgraduate studies in Paediatric dentistry at the University of Aberdeen. He also gained Membership of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Since 2015, Manolis has worked as a Senior Dental Officer for the Community Dental Service in Hywel Dda University Health Board in Wales. He treats patients with special needs and children referred from the GDS for sedation. Manolis is dedicated in supporting children from disadvantaged backgrounds and this drove his involvement with the BDA and the WCCD. He believes in equitable and compassionate care for the most vulnerable members of the society.

Outside work, Manolis runs the Classic Athens Marathon every year since 2017 as an ambassador for ELEPAP, a Greek charity supporting children with disabilities. He is also the founder of Small Bricks Project, using donated Lego bricks to create toys for young patients in the Community Dental Service.

David Barber

Vice Chair

David graduated from Birmingham University in 1986 and was in General Dental Practice for 14 years initially as an Associate and then as a single-handed Dental Practitioner. In 1999, David started as an Orthodontic Clinical Assistant in Glan Clwyd Hospital and was accredited in 2016. He still continues to work part time in the Orthodontic department.

David joined the north Wales Community Dental Service 2000 initially as a Dental Officer and is presently a Senior Dental Officer. He enjoys treating paediatric and adult special care patients, patients with a latex allergy and patients requiring orthodontics. He is the local epidemiology coordinator for north Wales and is presently the benchmark examiner for Wales.

David has been the cross rep for WCCD on the CDS GMC for a number of years now and is presently in his fourth year as Chair of the CDS Group Management Committee and also the accredited rep for BCU.

In his spare time, David enjoys spending time with his family and keeping tropical fish.

David Johnson

Representative for Cwm Taf and Chair of Welsh Council

Dr David Johnson is a Wolfson Foundation Scholar graduating from Cardiff Dental School in 2001. David has worked in the Community Dental Service for the past 18 years, having previously worked in General Practice and Cardiff Dental School, where he held a position of Honorary Clinical Lecturer in Oral Medicine.

He is currently working as a Dental Officer in the Bridgend area treating special needs children and adults for Cwm Taf Morgannwg uHB. His week is split between treating patients under General Anaesthetic & Sedation and treating patients in a Medium Secure Forensic Mental Health clinic.

Outside of work David lectures nationally on the use of Acupuncture within Dentistry as an adjunct to treatment and as a means of pain and anxiety control; with delegates travelling from overseas to attend the courses that he teaches for the British Dental Acupuncture Society. When not lecturing, he promotes and works with Bridge2Aid, a dental charity providing vital dental pain relief & training for healthcare workers to deliver sustainable dentistry in the developing world.

Matthew Allan
Representative for Powys Teaching

Matt Graduated from Cardiff Dental School in 2016 and did DF training within Powys CDS. After a two-year stint as an associate in general practice, where he gained membership of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, he returned to Powys CDS in 2019.

Matt's week is a split between seeing GDS, CDS and sedation patients.

Outside of work Matt enjoys reading, working on his allotment and learning Welsh.

Chris Wall

Representative for Swansea Bay

Chris Wall qualified from The London in 1987 and worked for the following seven years as an associate in general practice in Chingford, Essex.

A move to Swansea followed, without any job, and so, after a few months of a life of leisure, Chris obtained a Dental Officer post with the then Glan-y-Mor Trust. He started a Clinical Assistant post in Orthodontics in Morriston Hospital a year later, which is ongoing. DwSI accreditation in orthodontics was obtained subsequently.

Chris currently works four days a week for ABMU LHB looking after the foundation dentists training, with the other day in Morriston Hospital.

Away from work Chris spends time playing hockey, running, cycling, and ferrying his children to their various activities.

Vicki Jones

Representative for Welsh Clinical Directors Group

Vicki is a consultant in Special Care Dentistry and Clinical Director of the Community Dental Service for Aneurin Bevan University Health board. She is the current chair of the Welsh Dental Committee, All Wales CDS Clinical Directors group, All Wales Special Interest Group/ Special Oral Health Care and South East Wales Special Care Dentistry Managed Clinical Network group. Her external commitments include being chair of the British Society of Gerodontology.

Russell Gidney
Chair of WGDPC

Russell Gidney has been chair of WGDPC since 2021. Russell enjoys the challenges that the committee presents, representing the views of practices and practitioners to the Government and organisations in Wales, representing Wales through the home nations and meeting dentist's across Wales.

Russell qualified from Cardiff in 2002 and has worked in general practice in South Wales since that time. Vocational training and his first five years in Caldicot before moving to Chepstow in 2007 to manage a start-up practice. Russell has owned the practice since 2009 which he manages with his wife. The practice is now six surgeries and approximately equally split NHS and Private. Russell is a Educational Supervisor for Foundation Dentistry and works one day a week back in Cardiff University supervising on the undergraduate clinics.

Russell has been active on the Gwent Local Dental Committee since 2015 and served as treasurer until 2021. He sits on the Agenda committed for the national conference and has been a member of WGDPC since 2018.

Eddie Crouch
Chair of PEC

Eddie was elected as Chair of the board in September 2020. Before that, he served as Deputy Chair between 2014 and 2020. He was Secretary of the Birmingham Local Dental Committee for over 10 years and was also Chair. He qualified in 1984 from Kings and now provides Orthodontic Care for patients in South Birmingham in two locations, having previously been a Clinical Assistant in Orthodontics.

He has previously Chaired the Annual Conference of LDCs and the West Midlands Association of LDCs, held the post of President of the Central Counties Branch and served on the GDPC Committee for over ten years.

He has been married to Jane for over 30 years and has a daughter Laura and a grandson and granddaughter. In 2007 he successfully challenged a termination clause in PDS Agreements in the High Court.

Peter Crooks

Vice Chair of PEC

Peter is Deputy Chair of PEC. He worked entirely in general practice, first as an associate for four years and then as a practice owner in Ballymena for thirty years. The practice began life fully NHS, but was a mixed practice when it was sold in 2017. Since then, Peter has worked as a dentist on three visits to West Africa with Mercy Ships. He was Chair of the Northern LDC from 2009 to 2011 and Chair of Northern Ireland DPC from June 2010 until January 2018.

He has been married for 37 years and has one daughter, two sons and three grandchildren. Peter is a BDA Trustee, Chairs the BDA Finance Committee and is the Board nominee on the Board of Trustees of the BDA Benevolent Fund.