The British Association of Dental Nurses (BADN), the professional association for dental nurses in the UK, is delighted to announce that Chief Executive Pam Swain has been awarded an MBE in the 2025 New Year’s Honours list for services to dental nursing.
“I have known Pam for years; I have witnessed her working alongside various Presidents and the BADN Executive Committee for the empowerment and benefit of the dental nursing workforce” said BADN President Preetee Hylton. “Although not a dental nurse herself, she has demonstrated unwavering dedication to the profession. Her tenacity and passion in standing up for dental nurses is admirable. I am delighted and honoured to have her by my side as I start my tenure as BADN President.”
Pam, who has worked for the Association since 1992, has had a varied international career. Following a gap year studying German whilst selling newspapers outside Vienna’s Wien Mitte railway station and working as an au pair and English tutor in Vienna, and a brief spell at the Home Office Research Unit in the late 70s, Pam brushed up her French in the pharmaceutical/food (CPC Europe) and hotel industries (Hilton International European Office) in Brussels, before working at the NATO Headquarters in a number of posts, ranging from Electronic Warfare to Crisis Management, Exercise & Training.
In the late 80s, she moved to
Bermuda to work in the Bank of Bermuda’s Investment Department, where she
completed three quarters of her American Institute of Banking Diploma and
several business management courses before moving on. During this time, she trained as a hotline
counsellor with the Bermuda Rape Crisis Centre, manning the phone hotline once
a week; and was Vice President of the Alliance Francaise des Bermudes.
Some 15 years after her first gap
year, Pam took another – spending 12 months in Boston, Massachusetts studying
holistic therapy at the Massage Institute of New England and obtaining the
American Massage Therapy Association certification.
Pam returned to her hometown of
Fleetwood in 1991 and began working for BADN (then ABDSA) in 1992, whilst
running her own holistic therapy business in her spare time. As well as being BADN’s Chief Executive, Pam
is Editor of the “British Dental Nurses’ Journal”, and also writes regular
columns for “The Probe” and other dental publications.
Having been a member of
Soroptimist International Fleetwood until it closed in 2004, Pam is now an
active member of SI Blackpool & District; and was President of SI Blackpool
2012-2014. During her Presidential term, Pam organised various events – including
a chocolate Tombola and a Meat Free Mondays piggy bank campaign – to raise
money for her Presidential charities:
Bridge2Aid and the Household Cavalry Occupational Casualties Fund. Another ad hoc project was the provision of
filled backpacks for the Mary’s Meals Backpack Project – a number of dental
companies provided children’s toothbrushes and toothpaste for inclusion in SI
Blackpool’s backpacks.
Pam obtained
the City & Guilds Licentiate in Management in 2005 and a Master’s degree in
Business Administration in 2007. She is
a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
In
2012, Pam was awarded Outstanding Achievement Award at the Dental Awards, and
the BADN Outstanding Contribution to Dental Nursing Award. Pam celebrated 32 years of employment with
BADN in 2024 and lives in Fleetwood.
