CDS named winners for Delivering Good Governance and Engagement among employee-owned businesses
NewsPosted by: Dental Design 19th November 2021
Community Dental Services CiC is the winner of the EOA award for Delivering Good Governance and Engagement, as announced in yesterday’s annual Employee Ownership Association conference.
The competition held by the EOA, celebrated how being employee-owned has supported businesses during challenging times. Entries came from employee-owned businesses of all sizes and highlighted how their focus on their people has supported employee health and wellbeing, helped the business adapt and delivered benefit for multiple stakeholders.
CDS’s entry focused on how we took responsibility, as a group of employee owners, in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in Spring/Summer 2020, to set up UDCs across seven counties, and were one of the first dental providers to resume direct care for patients during the lockdown. CDC’s submission described the amazing efforts to establish operating procedures, source PPE and the steps taken, in numerous ways to support and reassure patients and each other.
CDS’s Chief Executive Alison Reid, praised the hard work of all employees: “I am proud to see us recognised for the work everyone has been doing during the pandemic. EOA represents over 8,000 employee owned companies, many health and care providers so it’s great to be winners in this category. It is especially pleasing that our submission has been selected as the winner, given that this year’s awards were decided by votes cast by other employee owned businesses, many of whom were delivering incredible things in their communities. It is fantastic news that CDS has been recognised nationally alongside our peers, for all our collective hard work and ingenuity as employee owners.”
About CDS
Community Dental Services (CDS-CIC) is a 100% employee-owned social enterprise providing community dental services to the NHS and oral health improvement programmes throughout Bedfordshire, Luton, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, Essex, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and Waveney.
CDS’s social mission is to Improve Oral Health in Ever More Communities.
2021 sees CDS mark 10 years as an employee-owned social enterprise. The company was officially incorporated on 4th March and began trading on 1st April 2011. CDS transitioned from the NHS 10 years ago under ‘Right to Provide’, with a clear conviction that being an independent organisation would afford more control over how services were delivered and, ultimately, on the quality care patients received.
