We are so lucky in the UK

The dental patients to dentist ratio is about 3000 to 1 but in Tanzania it is officially about 200,000 to 1. It is worse in rural areas since most dentists are stationed in cities.

It was very important to me that my work there was sustainable, so by training the local clinical officers to perform extractions they can help relief pain for patients after we left and carry on with the good work!

“I thought the dentist was very helpful and thorough, they made me feel at ease and did everything she could to help me. I’ll be on the lookout for a regular dentist in my local area. Thank you. “

“I called the service and was promptly dealt with and provided with a same day service. The lady concerned, gave clear directions and informed me what would happen. On my arrival at Kingsgate, I was dealt with politely and professionally and informed of what would happen. The dentist was lovely and informed me of exactly what she was going to do and provided details of a dental practice that I could register with. The whole experience has exceeded my expectation and I am totally satisfied. Thankyou!”

“I am happy with the treatment and care that I have been given this morning. From phoning up the helpline and then being given an appointment. The surgery is very clean and the staff very friendly and helpful. I was very happy with the amount of time it took from booking an appointment to being seen.”

“Service very helpful , quick appointment bit of a wait but to be expected. Staff helpful,friendly and polite. Actual appointment very efficient staff friendly. Overall opinion efficient, excellent service.”

“Quick efficient service received today 22.05.12. Feel happy now that I’m receiving treatment for a procedure that I felt had gone wrong. Staff attentive and reassured me. Advice given for follow up treatment.My trust in dental service returned.Thank you.”

” The overall service and care I received has been brilliant, I rang up at8am and spoke to a lovely helpful lady who got me a appointment for11am the same day, I was seen to pretty much straight away and wasn’t kept waiting. Overall I felt the service was very efficient.”

“I arrived at kingsgate house in lots of pain so I appricated being seen quickly once with the dentist I found her very clear in explanation of what treatment I was to have and what steps to take in regaurd to further treatment all in all I found the pratice to be prompt and proffessinal and wouldn’t hesitate to return!”

“Think the service is very good. The dental practitioner was very helpful and gave some good advice.. More than my last dentist gave. Ps: keep it up guys n girls.”

“Excellent and efficient treatment. Friendly and informative Dr/assistant. Have advised to join further waiting list based around Urmston due to high waiting list inStockport. Appreciate the emergency service though am clear aware I need further treatment to fix issues. Thanks.”

“My name is ……. , I had a appointment at 09:00 am from the moment I walked in I was treated like anyone else (respect) I am pleased about the service and I am now on track to getting a dentist. In terms of a rating out of 10, I would give a 8 instead of a 10 so they have a target to work towards.”

“Very pleased to be seen so quickly as my front tooth cap had fallen off. The dentist I saw was excellent in terms of explaining what could and could not be done.”

“Thank you very much for your quick helpful service I have been in pain for weeks and unable to get a regular dentist. The treatment was quick and painless and now I have no more toothache.”

“I was in agony with my wisdom tooth and was unable to get an appointment at stepping hill for 8 weeks but the dentist here was excellent and did everything in his power to help I am extremely happy with the service provided and was given excellent advise on after care thank you very much.”

Thank you for reading through these quotes and messages of appreciation and satisfaction. It makes me proud to be working at Revive Dental Care to help relieve people of their teeth pain. The customer service/satisfaction movement was set up by Ben and has been an overwhelming success. A success of which I’m sure will continue as well.

“My name is Susan Mckay.I have had a terrible fear of dentists all my life and neglected my teeth for 45 years! Then two years ago they go so bad that i was too ashamed and embarassed to leave the house.My mum dragged me along with her to visit Sam Wong at Revival Dentist Care and i can safely say he has given me back my life and my smile! I thought my teeth were too far gone and nothing could be done. But too my amazement my teeth look better than they ever have! I needed a lot of work doing and Sam talked me through each stage of my treatment and never embarassed me. More importantly,he has never once hurt me!! I hope anyone in a similar position to me can learn by my mistakes! Don’t leave it to get worse. Sam Wong has literally changed my life around! He’s my hero!! I just wish i’d found him years ago! I dont have the slightest bit of fear left in me thanks to Sam. Thankyou Sam…see you soon! x”

Point 1. The way NHS dental services are delivered is changing: Are consumers aware of what these changes mean and when they will come into place?

• Sign posting in the NHS dentistry is a very difficult and cloudy area, the advent of 111 should increase the knowledge base of the patients about what they can and cannot expect within NHS dental services.
• Responsibility is being put back in the hands of the patients and this can only be a good thing.
• The communication between services is imperative, we often find other professionals are trying to invent something that already exists, e.g. patient failing to attend appointments within all NHS dental services is a huge problem, utilising text messages and emails has dramatically reduced this within modern NHS dentistry, however I get no such thing from the doctors. Communication is the key to all of these learning outcomes, and consumers must drive to understand where they can access information.

What does this mean for the average consumer from a health point of view?

• It will mean improvement in preventative measures but it might lead to confusion regarding their wants and needs may move further apart.

And what benefits/disadvantages will it bring financially?

For the profession and patients

• Financially I can see us needing allot less dentists, this is a real worry for the young dentists qualifying.
• Needing less dentists will also drive down salaries, using the pharmacy model, they have seen a large fall in salaries over the past 5-10 years
• Practice will be more team orientated in the future with PCDs doing more of the prevention than they have in the past. Our career structure with our dental practice is improving all the time. This is a real positive move for the team approach to dentistry.
• Reduction in costs again is really important, if a patient is prevents dental decay they will not have expensive dental work, allowing the team to focus on preventative areas.
• For the consumer, having a greater choice of professionals within the practice can only be a good thing. It allows for different levels of communication enabling communication boundaries to be broken down.
• For the pateint to understand how we can prevent dental treatment being needed in their mouths is really important

Could we now see a shift towards private healthcare and the use of other methods of funding or budgeting for dental care such as payment plans?

• This is not my area of expertise and my allegiance is heavily in the NHS dentistry camp, however we do allot of mixed practice, patients seem to like the top up private item of service. Our private arm goes from strength to strength. Communicating with patients that the NHS is there for health and the private sector is for aesthetics makes sense.

Outlining the changes happening with the NHS dental contracts, will there be enough budget to deliver any proposals?

• The budgets are working within my practice, over the next few years we will see how this develops. Pilots are always different from the real world, but lessons must be learnt. We are accepting 80 -140 new NHS dental patients per month, incidentally we have always taken this number of patients on within the business for the past 10 years.
• New NHS dental patients are demanding, because we have not had the opportunity to develop a relationship. It is imperative that these patients get access to the services that they require and understand their options. This does put further financial drains onto practices, who will have to focus on increased patient retention.

Are average consumers aware of what their options are and what they are currently entitled to on the NHS v private dentistry?

• In a word no, when a patient is in the dental chair the majority realistically want to get out of the surgery as fast as possible, communication of services is ever complex. The new NHS dental service has introduced care pathways which hopefully will enable the patient to understand their mouths and what they are entitled to on the NHS. It will increase complaints within the NHS services if the practices do not get it right, conversations with patients regarding you cant have that root treatment until you have controlled your periodontal condition or your caries rate will become normal within the dental practice. I am driving within our business to make sure that we understand what the patient wants and the patients understand what they need.
• There is a high level of trust with the NHS dentist and their patients, making sure we have dealt with patients understanding is key to any dentistry. We invested allot of time into feedback processes within the practice to make sure patients are understanding their rights.

As you can see NHS dental sevices are changing for the better. I would welcome you comments on the above questions and if you have any suggestions then drop me a line. I will submit more questions in the coming weeks.

Well I have been a little busy recently as my family has come to visit and we have been out and about enjoying the beautiful weather whilst it lasted!

I went to watch the Lion King Musical in London and had an amazing time! If you have not yet experienced it, I strongly advise that you should and I hear it is coming to Manchester later this year, so no smelly tube travelling, tut tut.

I should hopefully be on my annual holiday travels soon, so will have lots to share when I get back.

Try to enjoy the sun wherever you can and stay happy.

‘Till next time

Happy Brushing

Ammara

Not only did these patients brave the rain and humidity to reach our clinic, but they were very cheery afterwards. As usual we here at Revive Dental Care Emergency Dental Service at Stockport In Hours like to see what our patients thought of the treatment they received. Below is quoted feedback from a few of our patients throughout the week.

This is what Mr T thought of how his treatment went. (Believe it or not, this wasn’t a member of the A team):

“Excellent and efficient treatment. Friendly and informative Dr/assistant. Have advised to join further waiting list based around Urmston due to high waiting list in Stockport. Appreciate the emergency service though am clear aware I need further treatment to fix issue.”

Clearly happy with everything he received during his time here and hopefully he’ll be on his way to finding a regular dentist in his local area or further afield if there are none available nearby.

Next up is a patient had in with a rather cheeky side to him. He had the following to say:

“My name is Mr H. I had a appointment at 09:00 am and from the moment I walked in I was treated like anyone else (respect) I am pleased about the service and I am now on track to getting a dentist rating out of 10 I would give a 8 not a 10 so they got a target to work towards.”

We would like to remind Mr H that we have plenty of targets to work towards without his suggestion but we never turn down a challenge.

Our final patient feedback in this post is Mr J giving his well written thoughts in a comprehensive manner.

“I am very pleased to be seen so quickly as my front tooth cap had fallen off.

The dentist I saw was excellent in terms of explaining what could and could not be done.

I am disappointed that he had no access to the proper materials to cement my tooth back on, even though I would have been prepared to pay for the extra cost incurred.

Recommend that consideration be given to changing this situation.”

In answer to Mr J’s disappointment, this is often the case where the patient is left frustrated because we cannot do more for him due to our lack of access to tools and equipment. As we like to remind our patients, our service has a sole purpose and mission. That mission and purpose is to get our patients out of pain until they can find a regular dentist of their own.

Following the treatment we are always interested to see if the patient manages to find a dentist in their local area which is currently taking on patients. In order for us to do this, we simply call each patient either the next day or a few days later to investigate how much pain that the patient is in, if their pain has gone, if they have found a dentist yet and if they think our service can be improved at all.

Until next time, we are Revive Dental Care Emergency Dental Service Stockport In Hours and we’re here to take away your pain.

Today I thought I would share a note or two about the nervous, terrified, phobic and absolutely scared out of their wits patients! I am going to let you into a BIG secret!! Before I was a dentist, I used to be the most nervous child/young adult you have come across! Yes, me; can you believe it??

Due to my own personal experiences, I vowed that I would try my best to alleviate those natural concerns/fears people have with the dentist. I hope my patients can vouch for me on that one! My nurse Leah, who is currently on maternity leave, was also a nervous patient and could not even face to look at the dental chair. Now, she is a new woman after acclimatisation! I would not go as far as “loves” having treatment done, but she can sit on the chair now and quite happily complete her treatment without feeling nervous.

Why do we get nervous? What is that makes us shake in our boots at the thought of visiting the dental practice? I believe it is the fear of the unknown and having weird instruments in our mouth. It is a sense of losing our control and being able to completely trust that particular health professional.

Rest assured, I understand how you feel and would love to walk you through your treatment until you are satisfied and skipping to come to the next appointment! I have seen hundreds of nervous/phobic patients, so I comprehend the concerns you have. Please do share them with me and I’ll try my very best to put them at ease.

Remember if you have toothache and you put it off because you are scared, the whole experience becomes a vicious cycle and harder to treat. The earlier you come, the better the experience will be for you and hopefully by coming regularly we will be able to nip problems early in the bud!!

‘Till next time, happy brushing and smile with those beautiful teeth

Mrs P came in on the 11/05, and had a dressing treatment. Following this she said:

“With regards to my treatment today via NHS direct; I have found the NHS direct support excellent today, following making the call I was directed to Stockport Emergency dental treatment at Kings gate House. Once I enquired about the service I was quickly given an appointment that was available for me. The staff were all professional over the telephone and face to face. The dentist was quick and efficient in diagnosing what emergency treatment I needed today along with antibiotics, fully informed me of what to expect and what he had done and how to care for the tooth over a temporary period.”

Mrs P now has an appointment at the Daveyhulme clinic once we suggested she should go there for regular treatment. The dental nurse and myself (Dental Administrator) found this patient in particular morale boosting because it showed us how happy we can make our patients by helping them out of pain. We feel it’s a job done that she’s now with a regular dentist at our other clinic and we hope to help many more people in future.

Mr S, was in last friday (18/5), received a prescription from our dentist. He had this to say:

“I thought the service was excellent. I wasn’t waiting long at all and when seen the dentist was friendly efficient and very supportive. This was a very good service.”

Mr S was a very polite young man who paid respect and attention to the dentist, and what he had to say as advice. We hope once his prescription runs out he’ll be able to find his own dentist that’s convenient for him to reach.

Mrs A came in a week ago on Friday (11/5) and received a prescription from our dentist. She was just relieved at the prospect to be out of pain and overwhelmed by the support we showed. She said:

“Service is really good, got seen very early. Found the staff supportive, helpful and the dentist fantastic and reassuring.”

Comments like these make us feel great about how we talk to our patients and makes it all worth it at the end of the day to see the results of a happy patient leaving.

Mr J came in last Friday (18/5) and had a dressing done on his tooth. As one of our more elderly patients he was especially pleased to be out of pain with the temporary filling. He had this to say afterwards:

“The treatment I had was satisfactory and the staff was pleasant. Very good treatment, temporary filling. I wasn’t waiting long in waiting room. Dentist was very reassuring. Only improvement would be if the service did everything.”

Again we were very happy with the comments he left us with. Targeting the last part, he mentioned about an improvement to our service which we happily take on as feedback. I explained to him that unfortunately as much as we’d love to help patients more by taking out teeth or giving them permanent fillings our service’s sole duty is to get patients out of pain. That’s our role until they find themselves a regular dentist.