A community interest company set up by the University of Suffolk was supposed to bring together teaching and provision of treatment, helping both patients and the next generation of dentists. But, as Peter Ingle has discovered, this is being beset with familiar problems

There have been no shortage of bright ideas to improve NHS dental access. Dental vans to go where there are no practices. Golden handshakes to entice dentists to underserved areas. Cajoling the GDC to increase ORE capacity, so more overseas dentists can join the register. Not forgetting a series of changes to the UDA contract. As yet, none of these have turned the tide on the DIY dentistry stories or poor access figures.

That leaves delegating more work to DCPs and opening extra dental schools. Which is where the University of Suffolk’s Dental Community Interest Company (CIC) and the BSc in Dental Hygiene and Therapy come in.

The concept is simple. Establish a combined teaching facility and treatment centre and attach it to an eager to expand university. There are many benefits.

The university and its home town get the kudos of a prestigious course, and extra students. The combined treatment centre helps to improve local access. Dental professionals are trained in increased numbers, and have the opportunity to work in the clinic to their full scope. Many of the graduates stay in the area, which helps to improve access long term. The local MP and health bosses get a photo opportunity at the opening day, and can look forward to receiving fewer complaints about the lack of dental services.

Structural changes

That is the theory. But while news and hard numbers are hard to come by, GDPUK can reveal that questions are being raised about how things are working out in practice.

The Suffolk project and associated model was closely associated with former CDO Sara Hurley. One of the reasons that she stepped down from the CDO post in 2023 was to pursue new opportunities. She had shown an interest in new ways of delivering NHS dental care beyond the familiar GDS and small business model, and the Suffolk initiative was in many ways based on her ideas.

Her position on the CIC board as a non-executive director was a reflection of a role providing strategic advice, and helping to shape clinical strategy. However, she left the board in January 2026.

While the former CDO is the highest profile departure, CEO Lorraine Mattis’s departure from the CIC may reveal more about the project’s changing trajectory. As CEO she was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the CIC. Her appointment in June 2023 was considered by many of those who had worked with her at Essex Community Dental Services (CDS) to be an inspired hire. Her departure in July 2025 was followed by a distinct change in direction for the CIC.

In the summer of 2026, Professors Iain Chapple and Andrew Dickenson also stepped down from the board, following on from Professor Cynthia Pine’s departure in late 2025.

Ms Mattis has not been replaced. The contract is not up for procurement. Until a new provider is found, it is being run by the board – which now resembles the CDS board. Where the CDS and CIC had operated in parallel there is now shared clinical governance, joint safeguarding and special‑care pathways, and combined waiting‑list management.

The CIC now seems to be shifting towards a salaried‑service operation and skills mix (replacing the previous mixed‑model commissioning), financial stabilisation, a greater focus on urgent care and ICB-led commissioning.

Overall, the shifts in emphasis were intended to increase urgent‑care capacity, reduce waiting times, and make access more predictable. The downside has been that they have narrowed the scope of care patients can receive. More people will be seen, but they will likely receive a more limited package of care.

Financial realities

The available evidence from Suffolk suggests that the blue skies operation envisaged by Sara Hurley, which Lorraine Mattis was trying to deliver, has had a bruising collision with financial and political reality.

NHS BSA data for May 2025 gives little indication of the CIC’s target in UDA terms. As a PDS type contract, the number given in the performance target column is 1. However, it does reveal that the CIC delivered a total of 417.2 UDAs that month, and has a contract worth £2,302,080. Because of the nature of the contracts, it is impossible to compare costs with a standard NHS contract. But, to provide some context, this works out at around £450 per UDA. A year later in May 2026, the total had risen to 694.2 UDAs. This reduced the nominal UDA rate to about £290.

By May 2026, the 24-month total for UDAs delivered to adults was 2,725, and the 12-month total for children to 307.

A spokesperson for the CIC said there is a revised contract for this year as they transition to procuring a specialist dental provider to deliver the NHS contract.

The new Dental Access Centres

In some ways the new look CIC is beginning to resemble the Blair era Dental Access Centres (DACs) of the early 2000s. DACs cost more per patient episode than GDS dentistry, but comparison was difficult because the NHS never published a cost‑per‑course figure, and the structure of DAC activity made direct comparison impossible.

Plausible cost estimates for DACs ranged from £80 -£120 per course, often for emergency focussed treatments. The NHS fee in practice for a surgical extraction in 2004 was £19.60. At that time, typical GDS claims for the delivery of comprehensive care, ranged from £45 to £70.

The DACs were an attempt to deliver Blair's conference promise on dental access, and as such had lots of money thrown at them. Older readers may remember they managed to be both very inefficient, and as a result expensive. Most importantly, they didn't deliver the amount of care needed to shift the dial on public perceptions. For example, they had to redefine reasonable access (in terms of how far away one might be) so they didn't have to open too many, so in the end lots of the people they were supposed to help couldn't get to them. They were quietly closed or merged into the CDS at or by the time of the new contract.

A spokesperson for the CIC said: ‘The establishment of the Dental CIC on the University of Suffolk campus in 2024 has enabled the University to ensure a well-equipped, high-quality clinical environment for training its dental hygiene and therapy students, while increasing access to NHS dental and oral health care for the local community.

‘To continue its development and the provision of NHS services, the ICB is now working with the University to seek an experienced NHS dental provider to manage the contract, with placements for the University’s students remaining a priority. This procurement process is currently underway. In the transition period, the University’s Dental CIC is being supported by CDS CIC.’

It is possible that the forthcoming new dental schools, including Norwich, are looking to copy the Suffolk model of offering a Dental Therapist degree alongside a CIC. Someone with a long memory might want to remind NHS England about the DAC experiment.