In 2024 dental charity, Bridge2Aid, is celebrating 20 years since their first Dental Volunteer Programme in Tanzania. Chief Executive, Shaenna Loughnane, explains how its strategy for delivering aid has changed recently. One of the key threads of all of our work is around localisation and working hand- in- hand with the Ministry of Health, both in Tanzania and Malawi, as well as local partners on the ground. Those partners are now our strategic partners, and they are the people running the programmes and making all the decisions. Our role now is to to support and help them in ways dictated by ..read more

If you cast your mind back to the meetings you had with your careers officer at school. What was the first question that usually set the conversation going? More than likely, it was ‘What do you want to ‘BE’ when you leave school?’ The choice of the word ‘Be’ there is quite different from the alternative of ‘What do you want to ‘Do?’ The word ‘Be’ is more suggestive of an effect rather than a cause. For instance, you can’t ‘do’ happy, but you can ‘be’ happy. You can’t ‘do’ fulfilled’, but you can ‘be’ fulfilled. ‘Be’ is a word that resonates with us at Practice Plan. We want to be more than a ..read more

Head of Sales, Zoe Close, catches up with leading Dental Business Consultant, Mike Hesketh, to find out how he helps businesses flourish. Zoe: When I meet clients, they often ask where they should go for help. Or even, whether they need any help. What kind of help can they get? Is there a pinch time when people should reach out for assistance, or should it be when you are starting the business? Or is it better to wait until you’ve been established for a little while? What’s your advice on that? Mike:  I specialise in working one-on-one with established practices that have been trading fo ..read more

Two miners’ strikes, power cuts, the UK’s first female Prime Minister, oh yes, and The Bee Gees were all over the pop charts. And in 1978, psychologists Dr Pauline Clance and Dr Suzanne Imes first coined the term ‘imposter syndrome’. Fast forward 46 years and it’s a term I am hearing with much greater regularity every week in conversations with dentists. Just what it’s all about and why in the first four months of this year am I hearing it so often and from all areas of dentistry? What is it? So, in this modern world if you want to understand the basic of a topic better, turn to Google. Here ..read more

Dental Business and Sustainability Coach, Mark Topley, talks about a new programme he has launched called Go Practice Green, to help practices become more sustainable. We’re all becoming increasingly aware that it’s important to be as sustainable as we possibly can be. Not only for the planet, but for our future on the planet. However, I think a lot of people don’t really know where to start. They may understand that going green can save them money and attract team members. They may also appreciate that it can be appealing to patients too. But they can also be concerned about how much it coul ..read more

Regional Support Manager, Tracy Webb, catches up with recently converted dentist, Sam Labib. When Sam bought Hanham Dental Practice in 2018 it was a paper only, fully NHS practice. Between 2018 and the beginning of 2020, he set about computerising the practice and bringing all systems up to modern standards. He also replaced equipment that was failing or in need of updating. All was going well until COVID struck and the enforced closures ensued. However, Sam made the most of the practice being closed to patients by installing air filtration systems, shields, sourcing gowns and so on, so that ..read more

In this guest blog, Dental Business Coach, Mark Topley, shares the top six priorities for great leadership. In what is an increasingly dynamic business landscape this year, effective leadership is going to be more crucial than ever. The challenges of employment and the need for resilience in the workplace highlight the importance of being an exceptional boss. If you have found yourself in a leadership position by accident rather than design, you may well be wondering how on earth it got so tough, so quickly. Leading in normal times may have been occasionally frustrating, but it was OK. Now th ..read more

Dentist and Dental Business Coach, Dr Barry Oulton, shares how to increase the turnover of a practice without working longer hours. As a dental business coach, when I chat to dentists they tend to want more of one of three things. They either want to increase their income, have more time out of dentistry or they want to be doing more interesting or enjoyable dentistry. Many dentists are firefighting, problem solving, dealing with emergencies. They’re carrying out a lot of single tooth dentistry and therefore they don’t really have the time to do the type of dentistry they really enjoy doing ..read more

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, Practice Plan Regional Sales Manager, Sarah Barnard, talks about the benefit of exercise and suggests ways to incorporate it into your daily life. The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (13th – 19th May) is “Movement: Moving more for mental health”. The aim is to highlight the part exercise plays in maintaining and improving our mental health. Often, the view of ‘exercise’ is punishing gym sessions or running long distances. However, exercise doesn’t have to be extreme to do you good. It’s more important to concentrate on incorporating more ..read more

If you’re planning to visit this year’s British Dental Conference & Dentistry Show at the NEC in Birmingham on 17th and 18th May, we can give you five great reasons why what Practice Plan has on offer should be at the top of your to do and see list. Great speakers As ever, we have scheduled a list of sessions in our Dental Business Theatre that promise to be enlightening and entertaining. This year’s theme is ‘Future Focus’ and, as well as some speakers who have joined us in the past such as Sarah Buxton, Ritesh Aggrawal, Chris Barrow and Lucie Simic, we have a host of new voices who will ..read more