The Dental Nurse Courses Team
Meet our Northern Ireland based team with over 80 years combined experience in Dental Nursing.
We are very fortunate to have not only an experienced team but ultimately a caring one too who will endeavour to encourage and support our students in any way they can.
Susan Matthews, Assessor
Susan is our most experienced dental nurse with over 27 years working as a dental nurse in Northern Ireland, so the job can’t be that bad! We are very lucky to have such a caring and experienced person on our team who will offer support to absolutely anyone. Susan has overseen the training for many many student nurses over the years and has seen just about everything when it comes to dental nursing!
Susan has formalised her mentoring and tutoring by completing the Award in Education in Teaching as well as currently completing her level 4 assessors qualification and draws on this along with years of practice when helping her student progress in all areas.
When she is not dental nursing and tutoring Susan likes to spend time with her Husband Johnny, her two fantastic teenage kids and her cute crazy dog.
Lesley Drake, Assessor
Lesley has been a registered dental nurse for over 18 years. In more recent years she has taken on leadership and mentorship roles culminating in the completion of an education and teaching award this year. Lesley also has further qualifications in Infection Control and Dental Conscious Sedation. Lesley thoroughly enjoys dental nursing and everything that comes with it. She has always had a passion for caring for people since childhood and loves that she gets to look after people everyday, sometimes at their lowest moments.
She is a brilliant asset to our team and her encouraging and caring nature ties in beautifully with helping our students develop both personally and professionally. When not tutoring and dental nursing Lesley loves going on adventures with her Husband Adrian and two sons and as if that wasn’t enough she plays piano, knits, reads, and journals! She really is a modern day superwoman.
Amy Elliott, Sedation Assessor and IQA
Amy has been working as a dental nurse for 10 years and with additional training in Dental Sedation and Dental Implants, Amy now splits her time between Dental Implant nursing and tutoring student dental nurses. Amy is a tutor on both the NEBDN sedation certificate and the NEBDN National dental nursing Diploma and we are thrilled that she is able to bring that experience to our team. Amy has completed the Award in education and training and loves seeing her students progress as they learn more and more.
When Amy is not dental nursing and tutoring she is kept very busy with her wonderful family in Northern Ireland; Husband Carl and 3 young boys Harry, Zach and Jake. As many of you will know balancing a young family and work is never easy so we are very grateful that Amy devotes so much time to tutoring and helping her students.
Andrew Jones, Course Lead
Andrew is the co-founder of Dental Nurse Courses and the Dentist in our team who brings the dentist perspective to our training. Andrew has run sedation training through DENTAL SEDATION COURSES for the past 10 years and has completed teaching awards along the way. Andrew works clinically carrying out largely dental implant and sedation work across Northern Ireland. He has completed a Masters in Dental Implantology, a Post graduate diploma in conscious sedation and thousands of hours of other courses and training over the years. He has helped train hundreds of dentists and dental nurses in sedation across the UK and Ireland including on the NEBDN dental sedation nursing certificate course.
Marisa Russell, Lead Assessor
Marisa is both our lead assessor on the Dental nursing diploma course and manages all of our compliance, Marisa brings a wealth of dental nursing and dental nurse tutoring experience to our team and runs her own business NurturED helping to support dental nurses across the country.
Aleah Thorp, Lead IQA
Aleah has been a registered dental nurse for over 10 years and has been working within dental education for just under 10 years. After nursing, Aleah began her education career with being a dental nurse assessor before then working as an IQA in the last few years. Aleah has gone on to achieve her assessing qualification, Level 3 award and Level 4 Certificate in education and training, Level 4 IQA and more recently Level 5 Diploma in education and training alongside completing the theory element of the EQA qualification.
Aleah has also volunteeted with a dental charity travelling overseas to Uganda delivering oral health and setting up remote clinics around the country to help those who don’t have access to dental care. Aleah will also be completing her 2nd charity trip back to Uganda in 2026.
When Aleah is not working, she enjoys speding time with her family including 2 dogs and 1 car and enjoys ice skating as her hobby.
