Every so often, a speaker walks into a room and you know within five minutes that the audience is in safe hands. That was Laura Horton in Belfast. Professional from the first sentence, generous with her knowledge throughout, and very funny in all the right places, Laura delivered a workshop that managed to do something rare in dentistry: make the difficult stuff feel doable. This was not a day of vague theory. It was not a day of management clichés. And it certainly was not a

Co-founder Leticia receiving another donation of scrap A guest post by Mark Topley Every day, dental practices across the UK discard something valuable. Not accidentally. Not carelessly. Just... automatically. A crown comes off. A bridge is replaced. It goes in a pot or a bag and nobody gives it a second thought. Those restorations contain precious metals. Gold, silver, palladium and a host of other metals. Real value. Gone. The great shame (and opportunity) is that most prac

One room, many countries, shared dental challenges Yesterday I had the privilege of attending The Campbell Academy Dental Entrepreneur Bootcamp as a lecturer, and it proved to be one of those occasions that reminds us just how connected the independent dental profession has become. In the room were delegates not only from the United Kingdom, but also from Latvia, Prague and Kyiv. Different countries, different cultures, different economic and political realities and yet, when

A Guest Post from Nick Robson - Bearberry Insights Ltd   Running a mixed dental practice in the UK presents a unique leadership challenge.  You operate within NHS contractual obligations and UDA pressures, whilst simultaneously maintaining private patient expectations, brand reputation and commercial sustainability.   Clinical complexity, regulatory oversight and throughput targets coexist daily within a natural tension.  In this environment, safety can quietly become assumed

Calm, discipline, leadership The wider world is unsettled. The Bank of England is holding Bank Rate at 3.75%, inflation is still running above target at 3%, and the Bank has warned that conflict in the Middle East is pushing up energy prices and business costs again. Here at home, the National Living Wage has just risen to £12.71 an hour. In dentistry, NHS contract changes in England took effect from 1 April 2026, including the new 8.2% unscheduled care requirement for many p

Building a stronger future for independent dental practice Today, I walk into The Campbell Academy for the first time as Director of Business Education, and I do so with a deep sense of responsibility. This is not about a title. It is about a task. Colin Campbell and I share a belief that the future of independent dentistry will be shaped not only by clinical excellence, but by the quality of leadership, judgement and business education available to practice owners. Over many

In private dentistry right now, the market feels like a seesaw. There is a conversation taking place in every independent dental practice in the UK right now. It sits somewhere between the front desk, the treatment co-ordinator, the surgery and the bank balance of the average household. The conversation is this: when consumers feel uncertain about the economy, what actually drives their decision to go ahead with private dental treatment? This week, in conversation with a clie

First day back after a holiday: a pulse check on independent dentistry My first day back after a holiday is always a useful reality check. Tuesday is my pulse-taking day. Eight Zoom calls with clients, followed by the weekly webinar in the evening, and by the end of it I usually have a very clear sense of the mood music in independent dentistry. Yesterday was no exception. The names and places are irrelevant. The patterns are not. What I heard, again and again, was that this

2,900 weeks later, and the excitement of a first day still feels the same First day back at work after a 10-day break - and it has been a proper break, which included 60,000 steps around Rome and a huge Spring Clean exercise at home and in the garden over the Easter weekend. So a big backlog this morning of emails and tasks, even though I'm straight into Zoom calls with clients from 08:45 this morning. Oh - and by the way - it's my first day at work in my new role as Director

For some time now, I have been asking myself a simple question: how do we make sure that what we have built at Extreme Business becomes stronger, deeper and more valuable over the next decade, not just the next two years? Today, I am delighted to answer that question by officially announcing the merger of Extreme Business  and The Campbell Academy . This is an important moment, not only for me and for Colin Campbell, but for the wider independent private dental sector in the