Professor Raman Bedi
Role: Chairman
BDS (Bristol), MSc (Manchester), DDS and DSc (Bristol), FDSRCS (Edinburgh and England), FGDP, FPHM.
Raman Bedi was Chief Dental Officer - England from October 2002 to October 2005.
In 2006 he was asked to establish the Global Child Dental Health Taskforce. The mission of the Taskforce is to support governments on how they can improve children's oral health. In 2009 it was working in 11 countries. Each year it will influence the message, within national oral health programmes, that will reach out to 500 million children and parents.
Professor Bedi is based at King's College London and also holds an honorary chair at University College London where he was the co-director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre at the Eastman Dental Institute (1998-2008). He also has an honorary "Extraordinary Professorship" in Paediatric Dentistry at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa (2007-2010). He has examined and lectured in over 40 countries.
He was past President of the British Society for Disability and Oral Health (2002), President of the Education Research Group of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) (2002-2004) and chair of the IADR Regional Development Programme Committee (2002-2004). He has published over 170 scientific papers and 4 books.
As Chief Dental Officer he led a team which helped support the passage of three major pieces of legislation; Health and Social Care Act (dental clauses) 2004, Water Act (Fluoridation) 2004 and the Section 60 (2005) order reforming the General Dental Council. In addition he was a member of the DH/NHS Top Team and Founding member of the National Health and Social Care leadership network.
He chaired the English Dental Workforce review (2004) and completed its implementation targets in October 2005, namely increasing the primary care workforce by 5% net and generating a 25% increase in dental undergraduate training. He led the reform process of the prison dental service and chaired the strategic group which reformed the Salaried Dental Service. For 3 years he led the reform of NHS primary dental care and was the Department of Health sponsor for the Dental Practice Board and Dental Vocational Training Authority. He chaired the UK European Union Presidency dental programme, September 2005.
Professor Bedi has extensive experience in the voluntary sector, he was an elected member of the General Synod of the Church of England (1995-2005) and chaired the Archbishop's Council (Church of England) Urban and Community Affairs Committee (1996-2001). He was a founding Board member of the Higher Education Leadership Foundation, Member of the HE National mentoring scheme for senior staff (2003-7) and continues to be a Member of the HEFCE Strategic Committee for Wider Participation.
In 2003 he was given the national Asian Guild award and in 2004 the Asian Jewel award. In 2005 he featured on the front cover of the Asian Power 100 and was awarded the annual national British Association for Physicians of Indian Origin award. In 2005 he was given the USA Public Health Service medal.
