Perhaps the old-fashioned dental practice wasn't so bad?

The dental practice of 25 years ago was a 2 to 2.5 dentist practice, because one receptionist could cope with that number: it often had three surgeries, two dentists, one hygienist, with each surgery having a dental nurse: the practice owner was, more than likely, one of the dentists, an associate (perhaps with ambition to become a partner) being the other. The practice was stable, the patients were happy to see the same dentist from one year to the next, some perhaps awaiting their recall invitation cards (some of the patients in my practice used to telephone to complain if their recall didn't arrive at exactly six months!), and some attended the hygienist on a regular basis. There were emergency slots in which regular attenders could be seen. The regular patients were generally well controlled and required little more than maintenance treatment, which may not be considered to be a ‘profitable’ enterprise for the dentists, but sufficient patients recommended the practice to new patients who needed (sometimes extensive) restorative or prosthodontic treatment and the practice remained busy. A Vocational Trainee (now renamed an FD1) might occupy the third surgery and receive excellent advice from the experienced practice principal: from time to time, before the era of UDA Contract Values, the VT was invited to stay on as an associate. Stability was the name of the game and the practitioners purchased the materials which they considered had an evidence base and carried out a wide variety of treatment. Boredom therefore did not set in! There remain practices who follow this model and I would suggest that many such practices are now private, because they could turn away from the NHS because of the quality of care that they provided and their stable patient base.