Many years ago, in these pages, I wrote a blog called ‘ride the wave of change’.
I was encouraging people to accept the fact that change is inevitable and that the pace of change will increase and increase and now, some years on, we find ourselves in an environment where the pace of change is almost unmanageable, if not completely unmanageable.
In my own world of dentistry and on reflection over the past few years, the change in the landscape has been devastating.
Just a few years ago we used to live in a world in dentistry where all we needed to do was open a practice and the patients would come and we would earn lots of money and everybody (well us anyway) would be happy.
We didn’t need to ask permission or have a contract, we just needed to open the practice and go.
This seems very much like the modern McDonalds business model where people swarm around it and close roads as soon as the McDonalds opens.
Linking contracts for NHS funding which had to be won through a tender process and things got a bit more difficult.
People already in existence were basically awarded contracts but then the money started to move and some dentists went into the private sector and some went part-private and part NHS.
Now we find ourselves in a position where it’s very likely that much of the money from the NHS sector will disappear or be reallocated to places where it’s needed most and no-one outside of the world of dentistry will complain about that in any way.
Take NHS Orthodontics as an example.
For many years people with significant NHS Orthodontic contracts have made literally millions of pounds straightening the teeth of middle class children on the basis that it was a heath need but in reality everyone outside of Orthodontics wonders if that is not a questionable rational for treatment.
That model is dead now.
You might be able to cling on for a little while longer but in a world where we can’t get an ambulance when we’re having a heart-attack and there are no theatre spaces for people who will be paralysed unless they are operated on within the next 24 hours, we cannot possibly countenance straightening middle class children’s teeth under NHS arrangements.
For the first four months of this year my wife (who is a paediatric nurse) was working on adult intensive care.
Shall we take some of the Orthodontists money and recycle it into ITU?
And so the moneygoround goes round again and the middle class will find themselves with more money in their pockets (despite fuel rises and benefit drops) and the poor in society with less.
And the middle class will find that they are horrified that little Jonny or little Jenny might have to wait to have their teeth straightened or their dental check-up or their asthma appointment.
Once they get over the shock they will decide (at least some of them will) that they will be prepared to pay to expedite the treatment for little Jonny and Jenny.
What happens to the people at the bottom of the pile outside of this financial security is a blog for another day, but what happens in the middle is that they will then seek out services for Jonny and Jenny based on service level and skill.
This is an entirely different model to the ‘open the door and in they come’ and this is a model where the quality of your business and the quality of your service and the excellence of your team and the brilliance of your clinical work will stand head and shoulders above the rest who are still trying to make it on an NHS model.
You may already be well prepared for this and your understanding of dental business and how to build a team and how to run your finances and how to market and your human resource structure and your strategy may be locked in place and you will be completely well trained in all the areas that you’d like to be good at in order to offer this wonderful service.
If you’re not, please may I take this opportunity to suggest that over this festive period when many people spend the time to introspect and reflect that you decide which direction you’re going next.
The pace of change next year will not be slower.
Happy new year!
Blog Post Number - 2947
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