Finest Dental insolvent – uncertainty for patients and practice staff

Finest Dental insolvent – uncertainty for patients and practice staff

The Finest Dental chain of dental practices has announced that they will be seeking liquidation and most likely cease trading, the BDA has reported. At present they understand that their practices are closed leaving patients and the associate dentists and other staff who worked at those practices in an uncertain situation.  For patients affected the company has posed a message on its website saying that it can be contacted on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Last week the Hampshire Chronicle reported that a group of disgruntled customers of Finest Dental showed up at the company’s branch in Winchester after months of cancelled appointments and a lack of information. One patient who had been undergoing treatment with the practice for four years has paid off a £3,500 finance agreement, but the work on her teeth has not been completed. “The last five or six months it has been really difficult to get appointments and appointments have been cancelled and changed,” she said, “Ultimately they said they would keep me in the loop, this was two weeks before Christmas and I haven’t heard anything.”

A post on its website stated then: “Finest Dental is currently undergoing a restructure. Updates will be posted on this website regularly. Many clinics remain open to treat existing patients. Urgent arrangements are being made to ensure all patient treatment is completed. We are currently not accepting any new patients at this time. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Further updates to be added shortly.”

The BDA has said that the current position for dentists who have been working at Finest Dental, which is the trading name of B&A Group Limited (company number 08432871) will be placing itself in liquidation in the next few days. An administrator (Insolvency Practitioner) will be appointed to wind up the company’s affairs.

Once an administrator has been appointed their details should be available from Companies House and on the official public notices website The London Gazette. The BDA is trying to find out who the administrators will be and will publish their details once they are known. We understand that Finest Dental’s CEO has also promised to let its associates know the administrator’s details.

The insolvency process will probably involve the administrator finding out who all the creditors are (this will include associates and patients who have made payments) and how much each person is owed. The administrators will then collect up or sell all the business’s assets and use the funds to pay the creditors. However, with insolvent companies it is likely that there will not be enough money to pay all creditors in full. Once the administrator’s details are known associates will need to contact them to tell them how much you are owed. The BDA says: “Make sure you have copies of your associate contracts and details of your fees earned ready, to give to the administrator.”

The BDA advice continues: “There is a set order in which creditors are paid, as an associate it is likely that you will be lower down this list as an unsecured creditor. As such it could be that the proportion of what you are owed that you will receive from the administrator could be low. However, discuss your status with the administrator to see whether you could count as a preferential creditor (employees can be preferential creditors but self-employed associates may not be accepted as preferential creditors).

“In terms of incomplete patient treatments that you may have been handling your obligations are to take reasonable steps to ensure that the patients can receive continuing care. At present we understand Finest Dental’s practices are closed and so you are prevented from completing treatment – the BDA Indemnity team advise that the company would be responsible for making appropriate arrangement and so once an administrator has been appointed you should ask them about the arrangements being made for completing open courses of treatment.”

Link to BDA website:

https://www.bda.org/news-centre/latest-news-articles/Pages/Finest-Dental-going-into-liquidation.aspx

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