Why independent dental practices must compete on care, not cost, in the new global workforce era

What one dental group’s global hiring strategy tells us about the future of UK practice ownership

Looking back over the last the couple of months, I reflect that the most "stop and think" conversation I had was with the owners of a mainly NHS-based small dental group who shared with me the following observation (please don't shoot the messenger here):

"The phones are answered in Africa, the admin is done in Mumbai and most of the clinicians we are hiring are from Kerala, happy to keep our practices open 7 days a week and to work for £12 a UDA - we keep our TCO's white and British, because we understand the emotional bias."

It seems that whilst social media is full of debate about whether or not AI-driven business systems will "take our jobs", the reality may just be that the current Government are creating an economic, taxation and employment law landscape in which more Employers will simply seek to export jobs and/or import workers.

One wonders how the conversations at this week's Barcelona-based Dental Forum will be influenced by these factors?

The impact of this for the Owners of smaller, independent dental practices, together with the aforementioned AI-driven systems, is going to change the landscape (again) in ways that we have to pause and consider.

If you do own your own practice, one thing's for sure - you are going to struggle to compete on either price or running costs - and so you had better compete on clinical care and Michelin-star patient hospitality.