Our history
Dentaid The Dental Charity has a proud 30-year history of improving access to dental care for those who need it most. Over three decades, we have worked in more than 70 countries and helped hundreds of thousands of people access dental care.
Founded in 1996, Dentaid began by refurbishing donated dental equipment and supporting charitable dental projects around the world. Since then, the charity has grown to deliver outreach programmes both overseas and across the UK, providing treatment, oral health education and support for people experiencing homelessness, harm, poverty and abuse.
Explore our timeline below to discover some of the key milestones that have shaped Dentaid, to where that charity is today.
1996
Our story begins in 1996, when an English dentist refurbished a dental chair in his garage. Dentaid was founded so that the equipment could be driven across Europe and installed in a prison in Ukraine, where a local dentist could treat prisoners. The project demonstrated the need to send equipment to charities supporting vulnerable communities around the world.
1998
Dentaid is officially registered as a charity after receiving grants and working alongside partners including Hope Now and the Christian Dental Fellowship. At first, the charity concentrated on refurbishing donated dental surgeries and sending them to dental partners around the world.
2006
The first version of the BrightBites oral health education programme is developed, with oral health games and information sheets distributed to schools on CD-ROM!
2009
Dentaid engineers invent the DentaidBox – a portable dental surgery that can operate without access to running water or electricity and includes a specially designed lightweight folding chair. These are shipped to dental partners around the world in wheelie bins.
2012
Dentaid expands its overseas work to include oral health education projects, dental engineer training and volunteering trips to countries including Uganda, Cambodia and Nepal. These projects see volunteer dentists working alongside local teams to deliver care and support in remote and rural communities.
2015
Dentaid supports projects helping people displaced by the migrant crisis in Europe, including on the Greek island of Lesbos, where a converted Portakabin served as a temporary dental unit for people arriving at the migrant camp. A similar project sees dental professionals working from a caravan supporting people at the Calais refugee camp in France.
The charity’s first UK project takes place in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in December. Here the charity worked alongside a dentist who opened up his surgery our of hours to provide free clinics for people who were struggling to access dental care.
2016
To ensure that we could provide care in the areas that mattered most, Dentaid purchased its first mobile dental unit – named Dua. Dua was used to supply Dentaid’s first ever mobile dental clinic in the UK at the Trussell Trust in Salisbury.
2017-2018
Overseas volunteering trips expand to more countries than ever before, including Kenya, South Africa, Panama, Zimbabwe and Moldova. Dentaid pays its first visits to Zambia and Sri Lanka and helps to set up a toothbrushing scheme in remote areas of Nepal.
2019
Dentaid expands further with a second mobile unit, Becky, joining the fleet and allowing services to reach more areas of the UK.
The charity also replaces the wheelie bins previously used to transport overseas equipment with lightweight bags created locally by volunteers at our Totton workshop. These can easily be transported across hard-to-traverse terrain and are much lighter, enabling more equipment to be packed and sent to partner projects.
In June, Dentaid moves into a new building in Totton in the New Forest, which becomes the charity’s main warehouse and the base where mobile dental units are prepared for travel across the country.
2023
We launch our first regional hub in Kent with the support of Septodont.
Dentaid resumes overseas volunteering trips following the pandemic, with visits to Uganda, Cambodia and Malawi.
In June, our work is recognised with a win in the Healthcare and Medical Research category at the Charity Awards.
We also relaunch BrightBites, our oral health education programme for school-aged children, which can now be delivered both in the UK and overseas.
2024
Dentaid launches a new mobile dental service with NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB for people experiencing health inequalities across the region. The service treats more than 5,100 people in its first year alone.
In April, Dentaid wins the Best Healthcare Support by a UK Charity award at the Our Health Heroes Awards for its work supporting head and neck cancer patients at University Hospital Southampton.
Two new mobile dental units take to the road for the first time this year, including Lottie, kindly supported by The Health Lottery, and Clover, Dentaid’s first solar-powered vehicle.
BrightBites receives support from Denplan, allowing toothbrushes and toothpaste to be given to every child taking part in the programme.
2025
Dentaid expands its work in the North of England with a dedicated hub in the North West, based near Halifax and funded by the Bupa Foundation. The hub includes a dedicated mobile unit and staff team supporting charity projects across Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.
Manny, Dentaid’s 11th mobile dental unit, launches this year after being funded through money raised during the 2024 Straumann Bike Ride.
Dentaid delivers more than 1,000 charity clinics for the first time, operating 1,244 clinics in 97 locations across 35 counties in England and Wales.
2026
In April, the fleet of mobile dental units grows to 12 with the launch of Freja, supported by TePe.
Dentaid’s third regional hub, serving the North East of England and Scotland, launches in County Durham.