Time Up at Suffolk for Former CDO
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- Published: Monday, 24 November 2025 10:38
- Written by Peter Ingle
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It appeared to have gone quiet in Ipswich at the project led by former CDO, Sara Hurley. Perhaps too quiet, as GDPUK has now heard from very reliable sources that the former Chief Dental Officer will be departing, possibly not out of choice, from the dental school that she was so instrumental in setting up.
If proved correct, and GDPUK has form here, predicting couple of months ahead of her announcement that she would step down as CDO, this would be a blow to the current rapid expansion of dental training and drive to change the make-up of the workforce.
Dr Hurley is a director of both University of Suffolk Ltd (appointed in January 2023) and the University of Suffolk Dental CIC (appointed March 2023) Posts of this type typically run on a 3 + 3 years basis. Failure to renew such appointments to their second three year term may be presented as moving on to new challenges, but can reflect a wish by the board for that appointee to depart.
Considering its importance there had not been much recent news out of the University of Suffolk and its Dental CIC. At least, until this week, when the talk of ‘developments’ there began to spread. Amongst possible reasons for any upheaval, are the suspected conclusion that as it stands the model has been found to be hopelessly uneconomic.
A recent FoI request to this body revealed costs of £580 per patient appointment. As a template for making a frozen dental budget go further, or training clinicians for a world where a generous UDA just breaches the £30 barrier, it does not take a Consultant in Public Health to conclude that there are problems.
Whilst the above remains circumstantial, there are also some concrete developments to report.
The local CDS CIC has been brought in to rescue patients who were under care.
Events in Suffolk matter, because it is a template for the other proposed new dental schools and the ‘new ways of working’ that remain one of the last intact strands of the NHS dental recovery plan. This looks to a changed workforce with far greater use of Dental Therapists, and enjoys a broad coalition of support, on the basis that it will draw clinicians to a dental desert. The aim is a win – win with patients treated in the new dental school, while its graduates hopefully stay on in the area. The University also gets a prestigious and in demand course to add to its offerings.
A glance a few days ago at the previously informative CIC website showed only a basic placeholder explaining that “we’re making some changes” and offering little more than a phone number.
GDPUK called the number and the receptionist at the main clinic who answered, was unaware that the website was not functioning. When asked about the changes referred to, they said that they did not think that there was anything major changing, and it was probably just a case of website maintenance, which they expected to be back up in a few hours. At the time of writing it has now been down for at least three days.
GDPUK published a story in June 2025 covering a thoughtful piece on the future of primary care dentistry, written by the well regarded Lorraine Mattis, CEO of the CIC. Her Linkedin profile shows that she left the Suffolk CIC in July 2025.
On the Companies House site, Sara Hurley remains a director of University of Suffolk Ltd and University of Suffolk Dental CIC, but resigned her two directorships associated with the Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise in June 2025.
The former CDO left her non-executive directorship at Surrey Heartlands ICB in September 2025. The leadership and healthcare consultancy, Sara Hurley Consulting, was set up in May 2024.
Dr Hurley’s most recent posting on her Linkedin was inspired by the finale of the Celebrity Traitors series.
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