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NTMark Dayan — no licensed photograph is available, so the think tank plate is shown instead.

Think tank

Mark Dayan

Policy Analyst and Head of Public Affairs, Nuffield Trust

Nuffield Trust is based in Cities of London and Westminster — the organisation’s base, not a personal address.

Press citations

7

Topics

2

Dentistry access

Last quoted

Sept 2026

first cited Aug 2026

Mark Dayan: key facts

Kind of voice
Think tank
Role
Policy Analyst and Head of Public Affairs
Organisation
Nuffield Trust
Organisation based in
Cities of London and Westminster
Quoted on
Dentistry access, Hospital discharge / bed-blocking
Tracked press citations
7
Most recently quoted
30 Sept 2026
First quoted
27 Aug 2026

Who Mark Dayan is

Mark Dayan is Policy Analyst and Head of Public Affairs at the Nuffield Trust, an independent health and social care think tank based in London, where he has worked since 2012. He leads the organisation's engagement with political stakeholders and is responsible for developing consultation responses and briefings for stakeholders and the media. His principal research focus is the implications of Brexit for the NHS, life sciences and social care, and he has also published work on devolution and healthcare across the four UK nations. Before joining the Nuffield Trust, he held policy roles at the New Local Government Network and the Scottish Civil Service. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford and holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.

“These figures are good news both for the patients who received care, and because they show that staff and facilities are there to provide more care if the NHS can purchase it. The increase has been achieved directly by spending more: reducing the amount of money clawed back from dentists and taken out of the sector has meant over £300 million extra each year is going in.”

References for this biography

  1. 1.Mark Dayan | Nuffield Trust — Confirms current role as Head of Public Affairs at the Nuffield Trust and lists his research publications
  2. 2.Mark Dayan | HSR UK — Confirms role title, start date of 2012, responsibilities, prior career at New Local Government Network and Scottish Civil Service, and educational background (Oxford undergraduate; LSE MSc)
  3. 3.Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee – oral evidence transcript — Confirms Dayan gave parliamentary oral evidence as Policy Analyst and Head of Public Affairs, Nuffield Trust, on Brexit and health common frameworks
  4. 4.UK-US trade negotiations – oral evidence, EU International Agreements Sub-Committee — Confirms Dayan gave parliamentary evidence on the NHS and trade negotiations
  5. 5.Five ways that Brexit changed the NHS | Nuffield Trust — Confirms Dayan's ongoing Brexit programme lead role and his published analysis on Brexit's health impacts (June 2026)
  6. 6.Contact us | Nuffield Trust — Confirms organisational address (59 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP), press office phone and email
  7. 7.Mark Dayan (@markgdayan) on X — Account self-identifies as Nuffield Trust Head of Public Affairs; used to source X handle

Notable achievements

  • Gave oral evidence to multiple House of Lords and House of Commons committees on Brexit and health, including the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee, and the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee. Source ↗
  • Co-authored research published in the BMJ on how Brexit will affect health, alongside Professor Tamara Hervey and colleagues. Source ↗
  • Published a long-read analysis for LSE British Politics on five ways Brexit has affected the NHS, on the tenth anniversary of the EU referendum (June 2026). Source ↗
  • Research profile on ResearchGate records 18 publications and over 100 citations as Brexit & Trade Programme Lead at Nuffield Trust. Source ↗

What Mark Dayan has said

  • “Without fundamental change, NHS dentistry will remain a service that has gone for good in many parts of the country. At this stage, it's just unhelpful to pretend there is still some kind of comprehensive system in place.”

    analyst at the Nuffield Trust, a health think tank · Dentistry access · 30 Sept 2026 · NHS dentistry is rotting. Will the plan to fix it work? ↗

  • “A contract handed back in one town attracts little national attention on its own but repeated across the country for a decade it amounts to the quiet transformation of dentistry into a two-tier service. Access to dental care increasingly depends on what people can afford to pay and where they live.”

    head of public affairs at the Nuffield Trust · Dentistry access · 30 Sept 2026 · How easy is it to find an NHS dentist? It depends on where you live ↗

  • “As the government delivers the contract reform it has promised, it will face a stark choice. Either it makes NHS work attractive enough to turn this trend around and bring back enough practices to cover everyone, or it will need to give up on the promise of a universal service and prioritise those who need preventive care most, or do not have the money to pay privately.”

    Nuffield Trust policy analyst · Dentistry access · 30 Sept 2026 · Number of dentists offering NHS services across Yorkshire plummets, new figures show ↗

  • “'This is not a shortage of dentistry but a shortage of NHS dentistry.'”

    Nuffield Trust policy analyst · Dentistry access · 10 Sept 2026 · Dentists are not disappearing. NHS dentistry is. ↗

  • “These are still numbers that you would have thought were catastrophic in the 2010s. They're still worse than they were even during the 90s, a period when the public was widely perceived to be very unhappy about the NHS.”

    head of public affairs at the Nuffield Trust · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · Public satisfaction with the NHS rises for first time since 2019 ↗

  • “A contract handed back in one town attracts little national attention on its own but repeated across the country for a decade it amounts to the quiet transformation of dentistry into a two-tier service. Access to dental care increasingly depends on what people can afford to pay and where they live.”

    head of public affairs at the Nuffield Trust · Dentistry access · 27 Aug 2026 · How easy is it to find an NHS dentist? It depends on where you live ↗

Where Mark Dayan has been quoted

  1. Nuffield Trust response to government announcement on access to dental appointmentsnuffieldtrust.org.uk · 30 Sept 2026
  2. NHS dentistry is rotting. Will the plan to fix it work?bbc.com · 30 Sept 2026
  3. How easy is it to find an NHS dentist? It depends on where you livebbc.co.uk · 30 Sept 2026
  4. Number of dentists offering NHS services across Yorkshire plummets, new figures showyorkshirepost.co.uk · 30 Sept 2026
  5. Dentists are not disappearing. NHS dentistry is.dentistry.co.uk · 10 Sept 2026
  6. Public satisfaction with the NHS rises for first time since 2019theguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  7. How easy is it to find an NHS dentist? It depends on where you livebbc.co.uk · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

Contact & links

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.

Chairs, directors and heads of policy institutes, foundations and think tanks speaking for their organisation’s research and policy position. Citations are counted by an automated scan of UK press coverage and may be incomplete. Roles, biographies and contact details are researched and human-reviewed before they appear here; anything not yet reviewed is simply absent rather than shown unverified. This profile was last updated on 5 Oct 2026. See the methodology for how this page is built, or email contact@bridgeheadcommunications.com to correct anything on it.