Much like any area of dentistry, when it comes to providing dental implant surgery for patients there are a number of options available. For professionals, it’s not just about evaluating the case in hand and weighing up the possible solutions, but also selecting an implant system that complements the way you work. You also need to consider how your implant system of choice will affect the patient journey, especially in regards to time spent in the chair, the healing period and the resulting aesthetics. In light of this, one common discourse that arises among professionals is whether tissue lev ..read more

Industry-leading oral care products provider, 3M, has launched a campaign to help orthodontists attract generation Z patients by re-creating a trend for colourful elastics used with APC Flash Free braces. The ‘Colours that make you smile’ campaign is intended to provide orthodontists with pre-prepared marketing materials and information to help them reach this target audience. Materials include a downloadable social media toolkit, paid media templates, Instagram reels and other patient-focused communications. For example, posters, advertisements, banners, video for patient waiting rooms and po ..read more

With the recent announcement that Bupa will be closing more than 80 of its NHS practices, Matt Everatt discusses what this means for the dental laboratory sector and dental technicians. Bupa Dental Care has announced its plans to close, sell or merge 85 dental practices in the UK due to the ‘national shortage of dentists and the impact of inflation’. Although it may be a little too early to say exactly how this may pan out for dental labs, it seems the writing has been on the wall for NHS dentistry for some time. The ‘NHS priced lab work’ has been debated recently by many dental labs and techn ..read more

This month Bhavin Bhatt discusses the skill of nurturing through phone calls and the benefits of mastering it for aligner treatment. Business phone calls take approximately five minutes. Interestingly, this short period is enough for many dentists, dental clinic admins or treatment coordinators to convince their prospects to book their first consultation. Hence, we would strongly advise any aligner practitioners to learn the skill of phone call nurturing. Mastering the basic concept The most common problem with how dental admin staff handle phone call nurturing is their lack of ability to tran ..read more

Bupa Dental Care is to close, sell or merge 85 dental practices in the UK, due to the ‘national shortage of dentists and the impact of inflation’.  Revealed today, the release states the decision was influenced by increased costs and high energy prices, as well as the struggle to recruit dentists to deliver NHS care. The release reads: ‘Despite significant investment by Bupa Dental Care, the business has been unable to recruit enough dentists to deliver NHS care in many practices for months, and in some cases, years. ‘This is due to the industry-wide challenges of the NHS contract model ..read more

A team of experts have found that teledentistry has ‘incredible potential’ to provide regular access to dental care around the world, revolutionising the way people receive oral healthcare.  The global task force of academic experts, put together by the Oral Health Foundation and Unilever, found a number of benefits to teledentistry. These include the potential to remove or reduce many of the major barriers associated with access to oral healthcare, specifically in developing and emerging countries. They also found that it was useful where the access to dental professionals is limite ..read more

We hear from a dental nurse and dentist about how the Rota System has helped to make practice life easy and simple.  ‘Nothing was too much trouble’ – Emma Harrison, dental nurse My name is Emma Harrison and I have lived in Banbury, Oxfordshire all my life. I started to work at Amsel and Wilkins LLP in May 1993 straight from leaving school and qualified as a dental nurse in 1995. I was full time until I had my daughter in May 2012. I’ve been part-time ever since. My role within the practice has changed over the years and I now work as a dental nurse and receptionist. I took over the role a ..read more

Dr Raabiha Maan talks about how Pearl has helped patients to feel safer and clinicians to feel more confident. Tell us about your AI journey and how you use it? I sometimes feel like I live in a bubble as I didn’t know about AI in dentistry up until a year ago! I came across Pearl on social media and after my demo call, I was sold. Three months ago, I joined up. It’s become a part of my patient journey and check up. I’m the biggest advocate for technology to help patients and I use everything from scanners to intraoral cameras and now AI. I review all my radiographs first and then I refer to P ..read more

NHS dental charge prices have been hiked amidst growing concerns over the impact on the public. Charges in England will increase by 8.5% from 24 April 2023. This will mean the cost of a band 1 treatment like a check up will increase from £23.80 to £25.80 while a band 2 like a filling will increase from £65.20 to £70.70.  A band 3, like dentures, will increase from £282.80 to £306.80 – an increase of £24. As the cost of living crisis continues, the British Dental Association (BDA) have accused ministers of prioritising the lowering their own cash contributions to the service over tackling ..read more

With the issue of Turkey Teeth being a hot topic at the moment, Manrina Rhode discusses the complications of dental crowns that every patient needs to be aware of. Welcome back to part two of the ‘dark side’ of cosmetic dentistry. And keeping in line with porcelain veneers, crowns and smile makeovers, and moving on from composite bonding to what what a lot of patients are going to end up going forward. Obviously, I don’t know how many of you saw the Turkey Teeth documentary I was part of, a documentary on BBC – it’s still on Iplayer. It’s a brilliant documentary. I was on there as the veneer ..read more