‘Plain speaking boy from Teesside’ elected to BDA PEC
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- Published: Wednesday, 16 December 2015 07:43
- Written by News Editor
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Paul Woodhouse, who describes himself as ‘a plain speaking boy from Teesside unafraid to voice my opinion’ has been elected to the BDA’s governing body, the Principal Executive Committee, as a UK-wide candidate. Other PEC regional constituencies saw sitting members re-elected.
PEC 2015 election results
North East Paul Blaylock
Northern Ireland Philip Henderson (unopposed)
South West Nigel Jones
Yorkshire and Humber Mick Armstrong (unopposed)
UK-wide Paul Woodhouse (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
In his election address Paul Woodhouse said:
“I have been a member of the BDA since I was a student in the mid 1990s. I have never been particularly politically active and in truth have been the kind of dentist who was happy to keep his head down and look after his patients. I am probably the very definition of the average dentist.
"But times have changed and I have reached a point where I am saying enough is enough. For too long I feel that the profession has been taken for granted, we have acquiesced to demands, restrictions and regulations from on high without fighting back. The BDA is supposed to represent dentists in discussion with government and the regulators and fight our corner. Until recently there has been a perception among some quarters that the BDA does very little other than pay lip service to wider membership and has become an old boy’s network that only cares about itself.
"The fight back against last year’s ARF increase was for me the beginning of a sea change in direction from the BDA, but I feel that we, as a group, can, and should, go further. The BDA should be setting the direction for dentistry in this country, we cannot rely on politicians to do this as they look only to the next election. We should be unafraid to stand up and tell the truth about what is happening in the practices of this country, how dentists are becoming increasingly defensive in their practice because they fear the wrath of the regulator, how the NHS system is flawed and is bad for patients, how the greatest health tragedy in this country is the shocking rate of GA extractions when dental disease is massively preventable.
"As a profession we always run the risk of being a disparate group, by nature we are generally very self-sufficient, individualistic types, the majority of us work as self-employed people and all have our own beliefs in the best ways to deal with our patients and our practices. We need to come together if we are to change things I want to help shape the BDA as a force that brings dentists back into the fold so that we can speak with a unified voice and change things for the better.
"I am a plain speaking boy from Teesside unafraid to voice my opinion and I think that’s what the BDA needs!”
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