GDPUK Opinion - Chris Potts - The Corporate Dentistry Scene 2008
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Let’s look at the market in 1997 - the value of General Dentistry was estimated to be just over £2bn[1], with £1.495bn the value of NHS (combined patient and government spending) and just over £0.5bn from self pay and capitation in the private market. Coming right up to date in 2006 we have an estimated total value of £5.7bn[2] with £2.3bn from NHS and £3.4bn privately from self pay and capitation. The Private spend shows almost a 700% increase in provision over the past ten years, the majority of this through self pay method. The growth in this market, with a broadening range of treatment modalities, is way beyond anticipated growth and offers excellent opportunities both now and for the future.
So many things have changed over the ten years of GDP UK. In 1997 I imagine a 28.8k modem was the typical way of accessing emails and the internet – 56k if you were lucky, and then ISDN if you were in private practice. All this looks extremely slow compared with DSL, ADSL and Broadband. I possess a BlackBerry and find it invaluable with my work – the technology is incredible but it just gets taken for granted.
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Materials in dentistry have also moved on – I’ve lost track of which generation of bonding agent one should be using. Cerec 3 seems to be really improving - the number of implant companies at this years IDS in Cologne was literally in the hundreds. For those that have never been the IDS is well worth a visit. Quite motivational – you come back believing you are part of a most exciting growing industry. See you there in 2009?
Most practices now have websites and when you look at services they offer you almost have to check you are still on a dental site. Botox and dermal fillers, smile makeovers, whitening by the bucket load - how things have changed over the last ten years - what an exiting time we live in.
1997 seems to be the year when Corporate dentistry really started to ‘take off’ – in that year 62 practices were acquired or classed as new development by corporates. This is exactly the same number as the total for the previous seven years. 1997 was also the year when James Hull bought the corporate body Benedent Practices Ltd. and also in that year Oasis Dental Care Ltd. bought Dental Care (Northern). It’s hard to believe it only had just a handful of practices by the end of the 90’s. IDH had started much earlier as Petrie Tucker and Partners in about 1990 but with little activity until 1996, when with the purchase of PWS Dental laboratory and several other practices, Integrated Dental Holdings was formed. As we know rapid expansion has followed.
In 1997 Whitecross, started by the entrepreneurial Paul Mendlesohn in 1989 (now of CODE and a member of the group) was growing steadily – I believe it was also the first corporate body to be floated (in 1996). This was later acquired by IDH. 1996 had also seen the start of Dencare Management Ltd. with just three practices whilst not forgetting ADP Ltd which had started with one practice in Dorking in 1995.
"Turnover is vanity. Profit is sanity."
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