Social enterprises are businesses that put the interests of their people and the planet first. They are driven by a social and environmental mission and reinvest profits into creating positive social change. At Smile Together we have clear rules about reinvesting 100% of our profits back into patient facilities, our community and environment – over £6 million to date!
Smile Together has been a member of Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) since 2016, supporting their national campaigns and being regularly commended in the annual SEUK awards.
Our mission at Smile Together is tackling oral health inequality for healthier happier communities.
Each year our Brighter Smiles campaign brings practical tooth-brushing clubs, fluoride varnishing and oral health education to around 5,000 children in areas of high decay across Cornish communities, while our award-winning Smiles At Sea campaign sees our team visiting harboursides across Cornwall and Brixham to provide dental treatments and oral health advice to fisherfolk who rarely get the chance to visit a dentist due to the demands of their work. Our teams frequently reach further into their local communities, partnering with local charities and doing what they can to improve oral health outcomes.
Our investment into accessible patient facilities is transforming dentistry provision in the county for patients who need us most, with facilities not previously available locally. This includes a purpose-designed, accessible dental centre in Bodmin which was chosen by NHS England as the county’s first Urgent Dental Care Hub in 2020, one of four that we continued to operate alongside coordinating countywide Hub referrals during the peak of the pandemic.
Social and environmental impact is at the heart of all that we do, and in 2022 we became the first dental practice in the UK to achieve B Corporation certification, making business a force for good across the world
Increasingly people want to work for, buy from and invest in businesses they believe in, and are genuinely interested in businesses with an ethos that’s about making a sustainable difference. There are 100,000 social enterprises in the UK, contributing £60 billion to the economy and employing 2 million people. Here at Smile Together we are very proud to be a values-based, mission-led CIC and Social Enterprise.
