EOA & Community Dental Services launch EOA40 Give a Healthy Smile

Community Dental Services and the Employee Ownership Association (EOA) officially launched the EOA40 Anniversary Appeal, which aims to Give a Healthy Smile to 4,000 children in the UK.

The appeal was launched with the oral health team at the Carlton Road Academy in Boston, Lincolnshire, which is aiming to raise £40,000 to fund teeth-brushing programmes after NHS figures[1] revealed tooth decay is the single largest reason children aged between five and nine are admitted to hospital.

The EOA and CDS CIC decided to partner on the appeal to bring employee owned businesses together to leave a joint legacy in the EOA40 year, which represents the impacts that businesses that give employees a stake and say can have on the individual, communities and regional economies.

Evidence shows that employee owned businesses offer benefits to the local community either as Public Service Mutuals investing their surplus to tackle social issues, or employee owners using their voice to influence the social impact of the businesses in which they work, using profit or time to support local causes.

In this case the impact of helping children to develop healthy habits that last a lifetime not only keeps the individual away from having to be in pain and needing surgery, the impact on their school work and the household of having a child needing surgery, but importantly it also delivers the impact of diverting unnecessary emergency care away from the NHS.

Deb Oxley, Chief Executive of the Employee Ownership Association said:

“Community Dental Services is a shining example of the growing trend for social enterprises that have spun out from the public sector and are directly re-investing their profits back into the business to deliver greater benefits to regional communities.

“2019 is a pivotal year for the Employee Ownership Association as we celebrate our 40^th anniversary and the phenomenal achievements of our members who demonstrate that giving employees a voice and stake in how the business operates can help create stronger and happier regional economies and communities.”

Community Dental Services is an employee-owned social enterprise that operates for a social purpose. It does this by providing community dentistry services and delivering oral health improvement programmes, including supervised toothbrushing schemes in primary schools and early years settings, to help create a positive social impact in communities throughout the country.

“As employee owners of a dental health social enterprise, we believe passionately that we can and should do something about the shocking levels of tooth decay in young children, leading to high levels of unnecessary hospital admissions and trauma for the child.  We know that supervised toothbrushing programmes like this are a really simple method of supporting children and their families in a positive way, to develop and maintain good oral health habits that last a lifetime.

“When we won an award at the EOA Conference for the second year running, there was a very strong drive to make sure this could be a force for good.  We were delighted when the EOA chose to work alongside us to mark their 40^th Anniversary and launched the Give a Healthy Smile Appeal to help us deliver more supervised toothbrushing to combat the entirely preventable disease of tooth decay.”

There are over 370 employee-owned businesses in the UK that contribute over £30 billion to the UK economy every year. The findings of a year-long national inquiry into employee owned businesses and their impact on the UK economy were published last year in the Ownership Dividend Report. The report found that, in comparison to non-employee owned businesses, employee owned businesses are more productive, more resilient and have higher levels of staff engagement.

Businesses in the UK are being encouraged to donate and can do this as part of their corporate and social responsibility strategy. Donations can be made by visiting the crowdfunding campaign page at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/give-a-healthy-smile or via BACS by e-mailing healthy-smile@cds-cic.co.uk

[1] 26,111 children admitted to hospital due to dental disease 2017-18 NHS Digital’s Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2017-18