King’s Birthday Honours List 2023

The BSP wish to congratulate Past President and Honorary Member, Professor Francis Hughes, who is recognised in the King's Birthday Honours List 2023 for his outstanding services to Dentistry.

Francis has dedicated a lifetime of service to improving oral health and dental research in the UK and internationally and made a significant impact on improving dental education and patient care. He has worked tirelessly to improve oral health by furthering scientific knowledge and practice through innovative research, education and training.

Throughout his exemplary 40-year NHS career, Francis has undertaken considerable unpaid charitable roles in addition to his work. Despite stepping back from his full-time clinical role as Professor of Periodontology, King’s College London, he continues his research studies, teaches research methodologies and contributes to educational Faculty programmes. 

He is an internationally recognised academic, who has devoted his life to educating and inspiring generations of undergraduates, contributing to postgraduate/specialist level training in Periodontology for students from around the world, providing a substantial part of the workforce delivering complex periodontal care at specialist/consultant level - an incredible achievement.

Experienced in curriculum development, he has led qualifying programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and Dental Care Professional levels and taught courses at General Dental/Specialist levels. He has examined 23 PhDs and 3 MPhil projects at 7 Universities, supervised 24 PhD, 60 M Clin Dent, 5 Masters and 3 Oral Biology BSc student research projects, published 117 research papers, written 2 textbooks and authored 4 chapters in the field of Periodontology. Since 1995, he has served as an Editorial Board referee for 4 leading, international oral health journals and still serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Periodontal Research and is an Ad Hoc reviewer for other journals.

Francis’ innovative research is of the highest quality and sets the benchmark in his discipline. Working with partners from government, health services and industry, his work has had a profound impact on dental education, service, and patient care. As one example, as President of the British Society of Periodontology, he played a key role in driving forward the periodontal health aspects of the ‘Advanced Restorative Care’ pathways, recently reformulated into NHS England Restorative Dentistry Commissioning Standard. He worked tirelessly to ensure that the most disadvantaged would be supported, promoting equity for people with this common and debilitating disease.    

His achievements are evidenced by the International Association for Dental Research appointing him President in 2007 and the tremendous success of the Pan European Federation Conference he led in London, with over 4,500 international delegates, successfully raising London’s profile in the dental research community.

In 2015, he chaired the largest dental Congress in Europe, European Federation of Periodontology’s “EuroPerio” Conference at London’s Excel. A culmination of 5 years’ intense work, he led his team to break records with 10,000+ attendees. Keeping patients at the heart of the Conference, he helped produce a ground-breaking film, ‘The Sound of Periodontitis’, showing real-life experiences of patients diagnosed with periodontitis. Now translated into 8 European languages, the film attracts thousands of views annually.

Of late, he has served as BSP Senior Vice-President and EFP Congress Committee Chair, organising events across Europe, to unite the profession and encourage international sharing of knowledge.

Outstanding contributions to research, teaching, voluntary service have directly impacted the dental profession, benefitting patients around the world.