How Do We Move Forward?

Abstract

In March 2004, a keynote national conference on the topic of ‘Reflection and Moving Forward’ was held in Manchester, as part of the national programme for primary dental care research and development (R&D). The conference was reported¹ in the July 2004 edition of Primary Dental Care. It considered what had been achieved during the national research and development (R&D) programme, which had been targeted at primary dental care, and looked to the future. Abstracts of all the 47 completed projects, funded during the programme, were published at the time of the conference.² The report in Primary Dental Care¹ ended with the words, ‘it is hoped that the full proceedings of the day will be published later on this year’.

On 25 January 2005, Professor Raman Bedi, Chief Dental Officer (CDO) for England, convened a meeting, held at the British Medical Association's London headquarters, to announce that the proceedings of the ‘Reflection and Moving Forward’ conference³ were now available and to discuss how to develop the capacity for research in primary oral healthcare in the future. Nineteen people (Appendix 1) were invited to and attended the meeting. They included the Dean of the FGDP(UK) and the Editor of this journal. This article reports the meeting.