Dr Barry Cockcroft CBE, BDS

Barry Cockcroft was born in Monton in Lancashire but moved to the midlands in 1969 where he qualified from Birmingham Dental School in 1973. After one year working in hospital he pursued a career in mainly NHS general dental practice.

He joined his local LDC in 1980 and represented Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull on the General Dental Services Committee of the BDA from 1990 until he joined the Department of Health in 2002. At the time of his move to the DH he was the vice chairman of the GDSC and had just written the section of the Options for Change policy document on how NHS dental services should be reformed.  

Barry initially joined the DH as Deputy CDO and was appointed CDO in 2006.

He retired as CDO in February 2015.

Barry is proud of the fact that he was the first (and to this day only) general dental practitioner to hold the CDO post

He has been awarded honorary fellowships by the University of Central Lancashire, the Faculty of Dental Surgery of England and the Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK). He was also awarded an honorary Doctorate in Dental Science by the University of Plymouth.

He was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s honours list in 2010.

Barry has long been an advocate for making greater use of the whole dental team as a way of improving the health of the nation and instigated the production of the evidence based guide to prevention in primary care, Delivering Better Oral Health, the first edition of which was published in 2007.

He joined Mydentist as a Non Executive Director in June 2015 and stepped down in August 2021. He is a member of the Alumni Leadership Mentoring Programme at Birmingham University and was elected Chair of The British Fluoridation Society in 2020.

Away from dentistry Barry is a Non Executive Director of the Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust and is kept busy helping with eight grandchildren.