With days to go before the UK once again goes to the polls and a large number of voters still undecided on how to cast their vote, there is still a huge amount to play for in the General Election 2017. The handling of the NHS is critical to any party’s success, so we have scrutinised the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat’s offerings in the lead up to June 8^th. If you don’t have the time or energy to trawl through hundreds of pages of manifesto pledges, read below for a helpful summary of NHS commitments.

The Commitments

The Conservative Party: 

1.       A commitment to the founding principles of the NHS; a service that meets the needs of everyone, based on clinical need not ability to pay and care should be free at the point of use.

2.       Spending will be increased by £8 billion in real terms over the next 5 years.

3.       Create a “truly seven-day healthcare service”, with GP weekend and evening appointments for all by 2019. Hospital consultants will be supervising patients every day, with weekend access to key diagnostic tests.

4.       Current 95% A&E target and 18 week elective care standard will be maintained.

5.       Prioritise during the EU negotiations that the 140,000 staff from EU countries “can carry on making their vital contribution to our health care system”, whilst continuing to invest in training medical students. Will encourage and develop new roles and create a diverse set of potential career paths for the NHS workforce.

6.       The most ambitious investment in building and technology that the NHS has ever seen, to ensure that care is delivered properly and efficiently.

7.       The NHS will become a “better employer”, strengthening the entitlement for flexible working and introducing better support services for employees.

8.       To implement the recommendations of the Accelerated Access Review to make sure that patients get drunk treatments faster, whilst ensuring value for money for the NHS.

9.       GPs will be expected to provide greater access, more innovative services and offer better facilities. A new GP Contract will be introduced.

10.   The role of the CQC will be extended to cover health related services commissioned by local authorities.

11.   10,000 mental health care professionals will be recruited. The co-ordination of mental health services with other local services will be improved.  

12.   Radical changes to social care for the elderly. Aligning the current means-testing for domiciliary care with that for residential care. The value of the family home will be taken into account, along with other assets and income when assessing the amount of funding that an individual will receive from the state. The current cap of £23,250 will be increased to £100,000. Individuals will be able to defer payments if receiving care at home in order to avoid selling their home during their lifetime.

13.   End of life care will be improved. Families who lose a baby will be offered additional bereavement support.

None of the above pledges have been costed in the published manifesto.

The Labour Party:

1.       A commitment of over £30 billion in extra funding over the next Parliament. Paid for through increased income tax for the highest 5% of earners and an increased tax on private medical insurance. Money will be freed up by halving the fees currently paid to management consultants.

2.       A new office for budgetary responsibility will be introduced to oversee health spending and scrutinise how it is spent. “Sustainability and transformation plans” will be halted, and a review undertaken, asking local people to contribute, considering patient need rather than available finance. A new regulator “NHS Excellence” will be introduced.

3.       Privatisation of the health service will be reversed. A legal duty will be introduced on the Secretary of State to ensure that excessive private profits are not made out of the NHS at the expense of the patient.

4.       Promise investment to give patients a modern, well-resourced service. Guaranteeing access to treatment within 18 weeks, taking a million people off the NHS waiting lists by the end of the next Parliament. Patients will be seen in A&E within 4 hours. Mixed sex wards will end.

5.       The Cancer Strategy for England will be fulfilled by 2020.

6.       Funding will be increased to GP services and cuts to pharmacies halted, and the current position reviewed.

7.       Patients will be given fast access to the most effective new drugs and treatments, and “value for money” agreements will be negotiated with pharma companies.

8.       To make the country “autism friendly”; with specialised care plans in place and access to condition management education.

9.       High quality and personalised end of life care.

10.   A commitment to completing the trial programme for PrEP, and rolling the treatment out to high risk groups to reduce HIV infection.    

11.   Free parking for patients, staff and visitors at hospitals by increasing tax on private medical care premiums.

12.   For the work force the pay cap will be scrapped, with an independent review body making the decision. Bursaries and funding for health related degrees will be scrapped (University tuition fees will be scrapped).

13.   The rights of EU nationals working in the NHS will be immediately guaranteed.

14.   The foundations for a “National Care Service for England” will be laid. Social care budgets will be increased by £8 billion. Place a maximum limit on lifetime personal contributions to care costs, raise the asset threshold below which people are entitled to state support, and provide free end of life care.

15.   Funding for mental health services will be ring fenced.  Out of area placements for young people will be ended by 2019. Early intervention for children and young people’s mental health services will be prioritised. Counselling services will be available in all secondary schools.

The Liberal Democrats:

1.       Pledge to put a penny on the pound on Income Tax to raise £6 billion in extra revenue for NHS and Social care funding. This money would be directed to key areas, including social care, primary care, mental health and public health.

2.       Commission a dedicated health and care tax following consultation.

3.       Guarantee the rights of all EU NHS and social care staff to remain in the UK.

4.       End the public sector pay freeze for NHS workers and reinstate nurse bursaries.

5.       Transforming mental health care and reducing associated waiting times to no more than 6 weeks for a therapy appointment for depression or anxiety. No young person will wait for more than two weeks for treatment when they first experience psychosis. The focus will be on young people and pregnant women/ new mothers.

6.       An end to out of area placements and improving front line services in schools and universities. Ensure LGBT and inclusive mental health services receive funding and support.

7.       Establish a cross party health and social care convention to carry out a review of the long term sustainability of the health and social care finances and workforce. Introduce a statutory independent budget monitoring agency for health and care, similar to the Office for Budget Responsibility.  

8.       Improving the integration of health and social care; ultimately creating one service with pooled budgets.

9.       Implement a cap on the cost of social care and increase the earnings limited from £100 to £150 per week for eligibility for carers’ allowance, and reduce number of care hours a week for qualification.

10.   Provide more choice of end of life care and move towards free end of life social care. Expanding the work of hospices.

11.   Promote easier access to GPs, expanding evening and weekend opening, encouraging the use of on line appointments, whilst supporting GPs to prevent practice closures.

12.   Using innovative funding to promote GP led multidisciplinary health and care hubs and ensure access to local pharmacies.

13.   Helping people stay healthy in the first place through a National Well Being strategy, including public awareness campaigns on cancer and by developing a strategy to tackle childhood obesity and a sugar tax.

14.   Introduce a minimum unit pricing for alcohol.

15.   Make PrEP for HIV prevention available on the NHS.

What will these pledges cost?

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has undertaken its own review of the funding behind each of the above pledges and state as follows;

The Conservative manifesto:  Would suggest an increase in Department of Health (DH) spending to £132 billion (in today’s prices) in 2022­–23, if the other (non-NHS) aspects of DH spending were frozen in real terms over this period. This would be an average growth in real spending of 1.2% per year between 2016–17 and 2022–23.

The Labour manifesto: promised a larger increase in health funding. Labour would increase spending relative to current government plans by £7.7 billion in 2017–18, rising to £8.4 billion (in nominal terms) by 2021-22. This could take DH spending to around £135 billion (in today’s prices) in 2021–22. This would be an average 2.0% per year real increase in spending between 2016–17 and 2021–22.

The Liberal Democrats: have pledged to increase spending on health and social care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by approximately £6 billion each year, with £2 billion ring-fenced specifically for social care. This could imply DH spending of £131 billion (in today’s prices) in 2021-22, and average growth in spending of 1.4% per year in real terms between 2016–17 and 2021–22.

However they also conclude that the planned spending of all three parties is well below the historical 4% per year growth in health care spending per year that has been seen since 2009/10. The difference between the parties spending plans is in fact reasonably modest and as such the NHS will continue to suffer financially whoever will win the general election.

Julia Furley, Barrister, JFH Law LLP

Hello all,

Today (17th May 2017) we will be delivering our 10,000th daily email digest to our GDPUK members. Something we are extremely proud of.

• Our first daily digest was sent out in 2008 when we built the first GDPUK website (pictured above).
• Barring one or two hiccups alomng the way.... We have sent out 3 daily digest emails a day since.
• The emails contain the latest news from the site, plus the top forum posts of the day. This keeps our members engaged with the site and more importantly, what is happening within UK Dentistry.
• The digest contains advertising banners from our partners, so thanks to all our loyal clients and friends over the last ten years who have made it possible to reach this milestone.
• In that time we have had 54 different people post over 1000 times on the forum pages. All that posting helped to create the unique content of the digests. So thanks to the 54 people and the thousands of other posters who have contributed to the site.
• Thanks also, to over 10,000 members of the dental profession who have signed up to the site since 2008.
• The GDPUK forum continues to thrive on a daily basis. The forum has had over 22,000 threads created and nearly 256,000 replies to those threads. That is 11.5 replies to every thread created. A lot of knowledge and content contained in our forum pages :)
• You have to be a member to view our forum and daily digests. Register for free here.

Thanks again for supporting and reading GDPUK.

We enjoyed an extremely busy couple of days at the Dentistry Show on Friday and Saturday in Birmingham. This year we didn’t have a stand, so we did a lot of walking, talking and listening of course…...

A few initial thoughts and products that caught the eye:-

The Full Picture

In a room of a few thousand people, it always intrigues me the different impressions people get from the show. “Fantastic show”, “our stand has been so busy” “selling loads of gear” and then you move about 3 feet to the next stand and the reaction is totally different “waste of time”, “not as busy as last year” “this part of the room isn’t getting any footfall” so when stepping back and looking at the full picture, I reckon it is somewhere in the middle. The show was certainly busy but it is not for everyone.

Takeaway - it is not always about following the crowd. This kind of show works for some companies but not all.

Closer Still

Closer Still Media, have built an amazing business, which is demonstrated by the fact that the show attracts a huge number of exhibitors, speakers and visitors. As you will know from previous blogs, GDPUK have not always had the best experience at the Dentistry Show but we must say that it has a great spirit, atmosphere and 2 days seems a perfect amount of time.

Well done to all the Dentistry Show team and the wider Closer Still Media team which is now over 200 people strong. They obviously understand the formula to produce extremely successful events.

Internet of Things

Last year we reported on Oral-B’s move into connected toothbrushes and now Philips have followed with the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart which not only is incredibly smart with its matt black handle, black brush head and charge in glass technology, it also uses connected technology to inspire and motivate patients to take better care of their oral health. I believe it will be available to consumers in the next few months. Great to see dentistry leading the way in connected devices and improving oral-health at the same time.

Good to Great

“Good to Great” is a journey to greater business prosperity for dentists, which has been underpinned in the last 12 months by the introduction of SoE’s Customer Success Programme. (Software of Excellence). The Good to Great Challenge encourages dentists to think more clearly about how they can optimise their performance and maximise revenue and provides a vehicle by which dentists can track and follow the progress of likeminded dental practices. More information available here - http://www.g2gchallenge.com/ 

Will be interesting to see how many practices get involved in this challenge and what affect it has on their practice over the 12 months.

Social

The show is great for networking which is demonstrated by the thousands of people attending and the huge queues at the Starbucks just outside hall 5! I really enjoyed this element of the show, fantastic to catch up with so many people from all areas of the profession.

A few other mentions and thoughts

• The Simply Health juice drinks were delicious and perfect after a few beers on the Friday evening. I am sure anyone who attended the Dental Awards or the Dental Circle party also found those drinks refreshing :)
• Prem at Quick Straight Teeth certainly caught the eye but I know this has been covered elsewhere on social media :)
• The dental industry certainly seemed positive overall, digital is growing. Innovation isn't always the quickest in dentistry compared to other sectors but some of the options and resources available to a dentist just starting their dental practice journey are endless.
• The 3M intraoral mobile tablet scanner is extremely clever and could be excellent for interaction with your patient. Info here.

Thanks for reading and hopefully see you at the BDA Conference in a couple of weeks. Get in touch if you would like to meet up or need some advice on the best restaurants in Manchester.

There is a feeling amongst dentists on forums such as this that the GDC has become too heavy handed when dealing with alleged misconduct cases.

In March 2017 alone, of the 29 misconduct Fitness to Practice cases heard by the GDC, 9 dental professionals were suspended, 4 had conditions placed on them, 4 were erased and 2 were reprimanded. There were also 4 cases with the outcome still pending. That means of the 25 cases concluded 76% of dental professionals were found to have committed misconduct.

Compare this with the GMC figures for the same month, there were only 6 misconduct Fitness to Practice cases of which only 2 had findings of impairment made against the doctor. Considering there are more doctors than dental professionals registered to practice in the UK, the difference is significant.
 
In November 2016 the GDC introduced Case Examiners in an attempt to help streamline the Fitness to Practice process. Their role is to consider whether a referral should be made to the Practice Committee. Given this new stage is still in its infancy, we are yet to see what impact this will have on misconduct cases within the dental profession. However, it is hoped that as cases will be considered by a lay member and a dental professional, a more proactive approach will be taken at an early stage. This is the approach taken by the GMC and the low numbers of misconduct cases being referred for hearings could be a positive sign of things to come.

Unfortunately there are rarely any consequences for patients who make spurious complaints which are not upheld; however, the same cannot be said for the professional. The time, stress and expense of misconduct hearings can have a devastating effect. Many feel that their stress is exacerbated by an unsympathetic and heavy handed regulator.

If you are facing a misconduct investigation, it will no doubt be a worrying period for you.  It is important to understand from the outset what legal test the GDC will be applying. This way you can properly prepare your defence and gather evidence from an early stage. Proper presentation at the start may well ensure that the Case Examiner determines that a case should be closed at an early stage. If the case should proceed to a hearing you will be armed with the necessary knowledge to put forward the best possible defence, which in turn could help with any later appeals to the High Court.

What test does the Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) apply when assessing Fitness to Practice?

The Test

The test the PCC applies is twofold;

1.       Has misconduct taken place?

2.       Is the dentist’s fitness to practice impaired?

Whether or not misconduct has occurred will depend on the allegations raised and the evidence produced and as such this element of the test will be fact sensitive. The PCC must decide whether ‘it is more likely than not’ that the allegations took place, which unfortunately is a relatively low threshold. However, even if any of the allegations are found to be proved, case law has established that the conduct must be ‘serious’ before moving to the next stage of the test.

Tip. Is this a potential area that can be challenged? Are you able to obtain evidence or refer to previous cases that show the misconduct is not serious and therefore no further action should be taken?

When considering if a dentist’s fitness to practice is impaired, the PCC should look at the dentist’s current fitness to practice? It will not be sufficient to show historic impairment, unless the misconduct is so grave as to warrant it.

It should be noted that impairment is not assessed against any established standards of proof; it is a matter of judgment for the PCC committee. However, a failure to comply with the fundamental standards laid out in the ‘Standards for Dental Professionals’ is likely to lead to a finding of impairment.

Tip. Even if you do not accept the allegations against you, you should consider what actions you can undertake to show your fitness to practice is not impaired. For example, attending training courses, amending your policies and procedures, or being mentored/shadowing another dental professional. This should not be seen as an admission of guilt but a recognition that professionals can always seek to improve. 

The Sanctions

If impairment is found, the PCC will go on to decide which of the following sanctions to impose:

·         Reprimand;

·         Conditions;

·         Suspension;

·         Erasure.

In deciding what sanctions to impose, the PCC must apply the principle of proportionality by weighing the interests of the public against those of the dentist.

Tip. This is where you need to put forward your mitigating circumstances so as to reduce the sanction imposed. Also you are allowed to suggest out what sanctions should be imposed and if you are able to give the PCC well thought-out sanctions bearing in mind the allegations, this could prevent erasure or suspension.  

Stage 1 – Case Assessment

When the GDC receives a complaint, it first considers if it is the correct body to deal with it. If so, it will obtain more information from the complainant to assess whether one of the ‘Standards for Dental Professionals’ may have been breached. It is important to note that the Case Assessors do not make any findings of fact.

You will be asked to provide:

1.       Evidence of your indemnity insurance cover;

2.       Details of your current employers/anyone you are contracted to provide services to;

3.       If the complaint is about dental treatment, the patient’s medical records.

Tip. At this stage do not provide any further information than the above. Whilst it will be tempting to explain what has happened, at this stage the GDC has not set out what the allegations are against you, so you do not know what you are responding to.  Any statement given could later be used against you.

Stage 2 – Case Examiner

If the Case Assessors consider a dentist’s fitness to practice may be impaired the case is referred to the Case Examiners; the case will be considered by one lay person and one professional. At this stage you will be sent details of the specific allegations against you and it is at this stage you will be asked to respond. The Case Examiners are not making findings of fact. Their role is to consider whether there is sufficient information to make a referral to the Practice Committee.

Tip 1. If the allegations are not clear, seek clarification. If evidence is referred to, ask for copies of that evidence.

Tip 2. Whilst the Case Examiners are not determining the case, if you can show there was no misconduct, we would recommend responding fully to the allegations and providing evidence to support your assertions. However, if you think there may be a case against you on the evidence received think very carefully before making any admissions at this early stage. It may well be worth seeing the extent of the case against you before admitting any wrong doing.

Stage 3 – Hearing

Should the case progress to a hearing then you will need to fully prepare for the same bearing in mind the test set out above. Consider:

·         What evidence do you need to rebut the allegations?

·         Are you able to show the misconduct is not serious?

·         What have you done to show your fitness is not impaired?

·         Will other dentists/patients provide statements as to your character?

·         What mitigating circumstances are there?

·         What sanctions should be imposed?

Tip. If you are not happy with the GDC’s decision you have the right to appeal to the High Court within 28 days. We set out the circumstances when you can appeal in Issue 2 of our dental bulletin.

If you need advice on a current Fitness to Practice investigation or appealing a decision of the GDC, please contact Laura Pearce on 0207 388 1658 or by email at lpearce@jfhlaw.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for advice.

GDPUK.com is for dentists and dental professionals to discuss all aspects of their profession, their practice and their business, centred on the UK. Subjects dissected have been diverse, from tips on simple techniques to guidance on buying major equipment, to discussions on the various practice management software packages, and of ongoing developments in British dental politics.

Established since 1997.

Moderated in Manchester, England by Dr Tony Jacobs BDS, the Group was started in Summer 1997, and continues to grow rapidly. Tony continues to work in his family general dental practice in Manchester.

Dental News

GDPUK.com also publishes UK dental news, and has had many exclusive stories, as well as being able to publish the latest news relevant to dentistry before other dental news providers. Latest news.

Blogs

In addition GDPUK blogs, both editorial and product updates are well read throughout the dental profession and industry. Latest blogs here.

GDPUK Forum

The group now has over 10,000 members, and attracts interest and sponsorship from major companies involved in the dental trade. The forum has had over 22,000 topics created and over 254,000 replies. That is 11.5 replies for every thread created! A huge amount of content and information.

Joining the Forum

The site remains free to join for all members of the dental profession. Register here.

Advertising

Advertisers can look forward to their banners being displayed thousands of times in a verified manner, using professional banner server software, to a targeted group of UK dental professionals.

Media Pack

Revenue is generated on the site by companies in the Dental trade, advertising on the site. More information about what GDPUK can offer our advertisers, can be found in our latest media pack. Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for the latest media pack.

Further Information

For further information on what GDPUK can offer, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Jonny will be attending both the upcoming Dentistry Show and BDA Show, get in touch if you would like to arrange to meet up.

20 Years of GDPUK

The site was established in 1997 and this year marks the 20th year anniversary of dentists talking to each other using the GDPUK medium. To mark the occasion we will be hosting a conference on Friday 17th November in Manchester. More details to follow.

20th Anniversary Publication.

We are currently putting together a publication that will be published in digital form in November 2017 around the time of the conference. If you would like to contribute to this please get in touch. We will also have advertising opportunities available at the conference and in the publication. For further information, please get in touch.

In a 2014 study commissioned by Brand Science and Microsoft, the study shows that not only does online advertising deliver excellent ROI efficiency, but it also provides extra value to your other spend in the media. Can be read here [PDF].

In basic terms the report shows that the difference in ROI is striking when a campaign has an online element against those that do not have any online element. When online advertising is added into the mix, the return on investment is much improved.

From a dental point of view, this means that when a brand sponsors an event or runs a conference for their clients, the marketing campaign needs to cover all mediums.

Over recent years, this is the way the online marketing world has evolved. Brands within dentistry have been hesitant to spend all their budget on online marketing but will often use some of their budget online, to compliment campaigns in magazines, events they are hosting or to promote attendance at an exhibition.

Businesses can see that they need coverage across all mediums, their customers are constantly using and sharing digital content and therefore digital is becoming as important as non-digital channels when looking to achieve maximum ROI on their marketing spend.

Therefore, digital is certainly important in the marketing cycle and plays a part in helping produce results from non-digital media channels. This is another reason that online marketing is here to stay. 

In Part 9 of this series, we take a look at engagement and the number of options we have to engage with potential customers. 

Online advertising lets you know a customer's exact level of engagement. You can see how many impressions and clicks an ad has and where the ad has been clicked. This again gives you the marketer, a lot more information than ever before.

Although the click to a landing page is a form of interaction and engagement, the measure of engagement is often based on other criteria and seen as a compliment or an alternative to measuring the traditional click which has been historically the first form of engagement taken into account. So this means this could be via content, ads or audience interaction.

You therefore can see what has been effective for your product or brand in achieving engagement; comments, impressions, shares, recommendations, social media, contact forms, competition entries etc

You might have circulation and readership data for a print publication, but you can’t know how much time customers spend interacting with your ad, how much time they spent on your website, if they researched more of your products, and whether that ad led to conversions. In fact, with print it is impossible to even see if someone has seen the ad in the magazine. Print advertising is often just following the old adage of “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” (John Wanamaker (1838-1922) At least with online ads, you get to see how much engagement there has been.

An online presence gives you all of a whole range of valuable data and places you in a position to learn where your most engaged prospects live, work or interact. With a bit of research you can find out where your potential customers congregate, whether that is a forum, social media or a marketplace like Amazon or Ebay.

This access to data means you can start to reach people where they are most engaged and where they are genuinely interested in receiving your message.

When using social media, online ad engagement can then be used for engagement retargeting, which is now used by all major retailers and marketplace sites.

To summarise this part  of the series, online advertising has all the right skills not only to attract your potential customers but to get them properly engaged and totally involved in what product or service you are looking to offer. Online advertising opens a world or opportunity and options to get your client engaged within your story. 

If someone makes a criminal allegation against you, whether true or false, you will be subject to a police investigation. This will no doubt be a daunting experience for you. In this article we guide you through the process and give you some important advice to help you protect your registration as a dentist.

At the police station:

It is a fallacy that only those who have done something wrong need to seek the advice of a lawyer. If you are facing criminal allegations the first thing you should do is seek legal advice from a criminal defence specialist solicitor. Good representation at an early stage will ensure your rights are protected, and can in some circumstances even prevent criminal charges being pursued. Facing a criminal allegation can be one of the most stressful events of your life, you do not need to face it alone.

The police can choose to either conduct an interview following arrest, or on a voluntary basis – commonly referred to as “caution plus three”. An interview after arrest means that you will be detained at the police station and are not at liberty to leave until the police or courts allow it. Under “caution plus three” is less draconian, and means that you are free to leave at any time as you will not be arrested. Everyone who attends for a police interview, whether, voluntary or under arrest, has the right to free and independent legal advice.

Can I choose my own solicitor?

Yes, if you are given notice of the interview it is important to research and identify an appropriately qualified lawyer.  However, if you are arrested unexpectedly and are not able to request your own lawyer, you will be offered the assistance of a “duty solicitor”. There is a duty solicitor on call at all times to provide assistance in the police station.

When you are arrested, and again at the beginning of your interview, you will be read the police caution:

“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

There may be circumstances when it is appropriate to answer “no comment” to questions being asked by the police officer. For example, where there is in fact limited evidence that you were present or have participated in a crime and the police are essentially “fishing” for incriminating information. Alternatively, if you do not feel comfortable or confident in answering all questions put to you, it is possible to provide a prepared statement setting out the terms of your defence. If this is done properly then it is unlikely a jury would be invited to draw an adverse inference as a result of your failure to answer all questions put.

Whilst legal advice and assistance is free and available to everyone in a police station, regardless of their means, you can choose to instruct a solicitor on a private paying basis, if for example you wish to have a consultation with them in advance of the interview.

It is very important that you make clear to your solicitor that you are a dentist, and that any police action against you could have serious consequences on your registration with the GDC. You must bear in mind that what you say to the police may be used in any later fitness to practice hearing. It can be a difficult balance to strike in providing information that offers a defence to a criminal allegation, but will not inadvertently leave you open to disciplinary action with the GDC. A defence of innocent incompetence to an allegation of fraud for example, may amount to a breach of the GDC Standards for the Dental Team.

If you did use the duty solicitor at the police station but were not happy with their service you are not obliged to continue to be represented by them.

Court Proceedings

Low level offending, such as common assault, shop lifting and traffic offences are all dealt with at the magistrates’ court. Your case will be heard by either 3 magistrates (lay people) or a District Judge. There is unfortunately very limited rights to anonymity before the criminal courts, and your name will appear on the court lists regardless of whether you are found guilty or not guilty.

Legal aid is available in the magistrates’ court, but it is both means and merits tested. The threshold for automatic financial eligibility is income under £12,475 per annum, as such most dentists will not be eligible for legal aid. When paying privately, it is important to bear in mind that even if you are found not guilty you will not be reimbursed for all your legal costs. Any reimbursement is at the legal aid rate, which is very low, and is dependent on you having applied for and been refused legal aid at the outset. Some insurance policies will cover criminal allegations, particularly where they are related to professional misconduct charges. It is always worth speaking to your insurers to find out what they will cover at the outset and remember you have the freedom to choose your own solicitor to represent you under such cover, you do not need to rely on the solicitors appointed by the insurers.

In the magistrates court you can be represented by either a solicitor or a barrister. It is worth considering very carefully the trial experience of the person who is going to represent you. Do not be afraid to ask what their experience is and whether they have dealt with similar cases in the past.

More serious offences are dealt with at the Crown Court. Legal aid is technically available for everyone who appears before the Crown Court, however, applicants have to make a contribution towards their legal costs of up to £900 per month, which is capped dependent upon the seriousness of the offence. For more serious offences you are likely to have the benefit of both a solicitor and an advocate representing you; this can be either a barrister or solicitor advocate.   Your solicitor should discuss their choice of advocate with you before they are instructed to ensure that you are happy with their choice of representative.

If I have been arrested but not charged with any criminal offence should I notify the GDC?

If you are arrested but not charged with any offence there is no obligation to inform the GDC. However, if you are charged, but not yet convicted, of an offence anywhere in the world, you will need to inform the GDC. Similarly, if you are given a formal ‘police caution’ (not the same as the caution above, but a warning from the police regarding behaviour following an admission of guilt), or accept a penalty notice for disorderly behaviour, then you will need to let the GDC know.

If you receive a fixed penalty notice for a driving offence or antisocial behaviour order, you will not need to inform the GDC.

When do I need to inform the GDC of criminal convictions/cautions?

Generally dental care professionals do need to inform the GDC immediately if they are convicted of a criminal offence. However, if you are registering with the GDC you do not need to inform them of a conviction if it is considered “protected”.

• This means it is not a “listed offence” under S2A(5) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (amended)
• A custodial sentence was not imposed
• The individual has no other convictions
• It was received either when the individual was under 18 and at least 5 years and 6 months has passed, or it was committed when the individual was over 18 and at least 11 years has passed.
• If you have a police caution that does not relate to a listed offence, and was given either when the individual was under 18 and at least 2 years has passed, or it was committed when the individual was over 18 and at least 6 years has passed.

If I am convicted of a criminal offence will I automatically face fitness to practice proceedings?

All criminal convictions and cautions will be referred to the GDC Fitness Practice department for consideration. The GDC will then consider whether the offence committed involved a departure from the high standards required of dental professionals and whether it impacts on their fitness to practice. Consideration will also be given to the dentist’s character and conduct since the commission of the offence. The GDC will assess the level of risk that the conviction or caution will have on protecting the public and maintaining confidence in the profession.

Do I have to declare my conviction to future employers?

Whether you need to declare your convictions to your employers will depend on whether it is considered ‘spent’. The rules are complicated and vary depending upon the type of conviction you have and the reason you are being asked to provide the information. For instance, an enhanced criminal records check is usually required for all jobs that involve working with children, so any convictions, including those that are ‘spent’, will usually have to be declared. If in doubt, ask an expert!

If you or someone you know has been contacted by the police, or faces criminal charges, call our criminal team on 020 7388 1658. Our dental experts work in conjunction with our criminal lawyers to ensure you have the best possible representation to protect both your personal, but also your professional life.

Julia Furley, Barrister

The image above greeted me this morning in an email from Google. The email read “With last week's announcement of YouTube TV, the lines between TV and online video continue to blur.”

Read more here. I thought this was perfectly linked to part 8 of the blog on Reach and how attracting interest in your product or service needs to incorporate so many different mediums to be effective. 

So according to Google, people are watching less live TV and turning to their computers, smartphones or tablets for their favorite shows, music, and to access their news.

Marketing professionals therefore need to make sure that they are staying in front of their customers and tracking their behaviour. So as all the latest stats suggest, your customers are online, so you should be too, and sooner rather than later!

Moving online gives you access to a global audience (if that is your target) and it means your ads can be working for you 24 hours a day. The options are practically limitless when it comes to your reach capabilities when you take your campaign online.

This means that your reach increases dramatically once you start the online advertising journey, as discussed previously you have a lot more control over your ads and they are building up impressions and clicks 24 hours a day, reaching unique 

Online advertising enables you to promote your products and services locally, or even worldwide. With the print media you can only reach fix number of customers limited to a certain location, but online offers you a global opportunity and certainly a larger number of options than has ever been possible before.

So with a modern marketing plan, your reach can be greater than ever before. Your online advertising plan can incorporate social media, video, blogs, plus of course specialist sites for your particular niche. Utilising all these methods of retargeting, means you can reach your target audience a number of times a month and hopefully get your message across to your desired audience.

Thanks for reading.

Part 7 on Affordability Here.

Established since 1997, GDPUK.com continues to go from strength to strength. 

Since moving to our present site in 2008, the forum has had over 22,000 topics created. The 22,000 topics have received over 250,000 replies! That is 11.3 replies per topic created, which is something that is quite incredible and shows the amount of knoweledge and opinion shared on the forum pages day in and day out. This makes the forum, unique in UK Dentistry. It is also all fully searchable. 

GDPUK also continues to post daily news and a number of weekly blogs which receive thousands of readers. We love keeping UK Dentists, upto date with what is happening in UK Dentistry.

Thanks again to all our readers who help to keep the site growing and improving.

The site continues to be a fantastic resource for the whole dental community and is free to join. Register here and join over 10,000 colleagues in discussing Dentistry in the UK, whilst also learning and sharing about everything Dentistry.

We are currently running an offer for advertising on GDPUK in April and May. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Twitter - @gdpukcom

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“The NHS is safe in our hands. The elderly are safe in our hands. The sick are safe in our hands. The surgeons are safe in our hands. The nurses are safe in our hands. The doctors are safe in our hands. The dentists are safe in our hands.”

Margaret Thatcher, 1983.

I remember thinking that when Margaret Thatcher said those words, written by speechwriter John O’Sullivan, that it was thoughtful of a politician to mention dentists. Thoughtful and unbelievable.

The use of the ‘Epistrophe’, the rhetorical tool of repeating of a word or phrase at the end of each sentence was used to echo Churchill’s ‘Anaphora’ of “We shall fight them etc”. Rhetoric has given way to the sound bite of, “The NHS is safe in our hands” which has always been Fake News or as my schoolteachers would have called it “Lies”.

The majority of politicians when given the opportunity have repeated the “safe hands” mantra. I wondered if it was a stock phrase they taught you at MP elocution school along with, “Hard working families” and "Education, education, education”.

“La-La Land” has been defined as “a euphoric dreamlike mental state detached from the harsher realities of life”. Few dentist fall into that category but I believe there are many who may hope: “To think that things that are completely impossible might happen, rather than understanding how things really are”.

A definition of madness is to do the same thing again and again hoping for a different result. Since Mrs Thatcher, governments of every hue have sought to undermine the dental profession by repeated assaults and insults both specific and general.

In the UK, like the majority of countries, most routine dentistry is provided by small businesses with the owners taking the financial risk of failure but also any profits from success. For years there was a 3-way set up, patient, dentist and NHS; the first paid the second the fees that were decided by the third that also set the rules. There was the possibility of competition, expansion and genuine entrepreneurship within the system. 2006 changed much of that.

The 2015 saw the Tories return to government free of their Lib-Dem coalition partners with talk of SMEs (Small and medium sized enterprises) being the “lifeblood of the economy”. Promises were made of more investment in super-fast broadband for entrepreneurs, a review of benefits for the self-employed and a trebling for the start-up loans programme.

A commitment was made by Prime Minister David Cameron (remember him?) to, “slash red tape” and to change employment laws to enable greater competition. One promise that was kept was for referendum, an excuse for any and all procrastination for the foreseeable future.

Cameron not only promised “the NHS is safe in our hands”, but also, “there will be no top down re-organisation” before letting Andrew Lansley set about things like a drunken bull manoeuvring a JCB in china shop.

The (genuine) news that the Inland Revenue’s “Make Tax Digital” (MTD) plans will mean all self employed individuals and small businesses having to make some form of tax return and payment on a quarterly basis hardly bodes well for dentists looking to reduce their costs. It will involve far more time and increase accountancy fees.

Changes in Business Rates will have a profound effect on many businesses, with London rates set to rise by 35.5% over the next two years. The fact is these changes should be made every 5 years but were delayed from 2015 so as not to interfere (i.e. prove unpopular) with the general election is further evidence of interference with the truth. Mrs May quickly promised help, then admitted there is no more money.

For years the GDC said that they could not make any changes and an act of parliament was required. This happened in late 2015, I am not sure that anyone has felt the benefits of “a more streamlined complaints system with timelier decisions, and with appropriate safeguards for both patients and dental professionals”.

Finally on the Fake News front that (new) NHS contract. As the BDA says, “The 2006 dental contract is not fit for purpose. It rewards dentists for hitting government targets for treatment and repair, not for improving their patients’ oral health.

In the 2010 general election, the opposition Conservative manifesto pledged a new dentistry contract. The coalition agreement – struck between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – pledged the contract would be introduced by the next election, in 2015.

In August 2016 Lord Prior said, “I believe that we expect the new contract to be introduced fully in 2018.”

And lawyer, John Grant ,wrote after yet another debate on the proposed contract.

“At some point there will be a new contract, but at present no one knows at all what this is going to look like.

When it does come in the government – no matter which party is in power – is going to want an awful lot more from dentists and in return is going to pay significantly less.”

If you think things can only get better (see 1997) then you are not only living in La-La Land but still expecting it to win the Best Film Oscar.

Compared to TV or print ads, online ads are still relatively low-cost for companies who are looking to reach their desired market.

Additionally, online advertising tools give you the ability to lower your budget or even stop your campaign within a few seconds. Print or TV operates on contract basis, and when you are in a contract, things are not always as flexible.

Because you are spending less with online ads and have the flexibility to reduce costs or spend more instantly, advertising online gives you a loads of options for your marketing campaign.

With the added flexibility that online ads provide, the amount of options you suddenly have are a huge advantage. The ability to publish a number of ads at once, or change the ad as often as you want is a huge advantage. This flexibility is all part of the package and therefore the costs don’t rise. If you advertise on a billboard or in print, you can’t adapt your message instantly and you certainly can’t change the message as you go along.

According to this article on whether online advertising is expensive, which I have to say does go off some generalisations and is US centric they sum up their article with the following statement:- “Offline, traditional marketing costs an average of $22.00 per impression as opposed to $3.45 per impression with online marketing.”

Online advertising reflects modern society in being instant, flexible and results driven! If you are looking for value in your marketing, you have to be looking online.

On November 4th 2016, GDPUK hosted a conference for our members in Manchester. The day was a fantastic success both educationally as well as socially and the feedback we received was incredibly positive. 
 

We were extremely proud to host event that was different in style than your “normal” dental event and we believe that was also something that made a difference to the atmosphere on the day. Thanks again to everyone who attended, our excellent speakers for making the day so enjoyable and our sponsors who supported the day and continue to support GDPUK. 
 

We have now made two charitable donations following the event:-

• £600 went to a Manchester based charity, close to the Jacobs family, named Prevent, a cancer research organisation, it used to be named Genesis. www.preventbreastcancer.org.uk
• £400 went to British Dental Association Benevolent Fund, a charity which many of you will know, which supports dental people in times of hardship. www.bdabenevolentfund.org.uk

For 2017, we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of GDPUK, and we are planning a bigger, even more exciting event in Manchester on Friday November 17th – Please put this date in your diary! More details to follow in next few weeks.

GDPUK.com is a social media site for dentists run by a dentist, Tony Jacobs. Established since 1997, there are over 10,000 dental professionals who have joined the community, they use the site to read dental news and blogs, as well as reading and contributing to the GDPUK forum where there have been over 250,000 posts since 2008! GDPUK is a fantastic resource for dentists and a great place to learn about as well as share your own opinion on important matters within UK dentistry.

"Flexibility - the ability to be easily modified."

Online advertising campaigns can be adjusted with a few clicks or changes to a banner.
You have the flexibility to respond to incoming data and make changes instantly. Similarly, you always have the ability to pause a campaign or adjust your marketing plan within minutes. This flexibility allows you to stay in front of your customers– anticipate customer needs and adjust your ads before anyone even notices.
 

At GDPUK we offer extra flexibility because our software gives the customer a number of options when they book a space on our site. Via our DFP software, our customers can actually run more than one advert at once in a given month. This means one of our customers can actually advertise two things or more from the same booking. One of our clients is currently using this method to advertise a number of offers at once. Added value and flexibility from GDPUK!
 

Having the option to change or adapt a campaign as you go along is another advantage to online advertising. Once you send an ad to a magazine it can’t be changed but with advertising online you can always experiment and adapt as the campaign develops. Online advertising definitely provides flexibility.

Part 5. Brand Awareness can be read here.

Our society has become more litigious over the years; patients are quick to complain to see if they can get a ‘quick buck’ and dentists fear such complaints being escalated to the GDC.

Litigation can be a costly game. For example, it has come to light that the legal costs for the recent 9 day fitness to practice hearing against D’Mello was an average of £10,437 per day. Given the allegations were undefended by Mr D’Mello, who chose not to attend the hearing, this has left many dentists questioning the use of their registration fees and asking why the costs were so high. [ see GDPUK news report].

If a dentist is faced with either a patient complaint or an investigation by the GDC, the traditional course of action has always been to approach their defence union; you pay subscriptions and therefore expect to be represented. However, is the defence union the best and only option to fund a case? What are the advantages/disadvantages with the various funding options?

When deciding whether or not to pursue or defend a claim, determining how you will fund the case will be one of the biggest factors to take into account. Knowing what options are available will make you better informed and can help you with this difficult decision. Here we consider those options and the pros and cons of each. 

Pay Privately. You may choose to pay privately for the legal costs. However, this is often the most expensive way to fund a claim, as it is likely you will be paying the solicitor on an hourly rate basis for all work done to prepare the case, unless you are able to negotiate a fixed fee agreement. The benefit of this is that you can pick an expert in the field and someone you can trust to do the best for your case. The old adage that you get what you pay for is particularly true here. The down side is that due to the very nature of litigation it can be hard to say from the outset the likely fees, as this can change depending on how the case progresses. A solicitor should however be able to give you a ball park figure and may agree to cap costs for you based on this or in respect of various stages to help you manage funds.

If the claim is in the civil courts, you may be able to recover some of your legal costs if you succeed. However, if you lose you could be liable for the other side’s legal costs. Unfortunately, in relation to fitness to practice hearings, you cannot recover your legal costs. Similarly, in the Employment Tribunal you can only recover costs in very limited circumstances and as such it is rare that costs are recovered.

‘No win, no fee’. These agreements are more normally found when one is pursuing a claim rather than defending it. The benefit to you is that there are no solicitor’s costs unless you win; this usually means a solicitor will be confident in the prospects of success of the claim, as otherwise they could do a considerable amount of work for no money. The down side is that as a result of you not paying up front, the solicitor will take a success fee from your compensation if you win.  Also check the terms of any agreement before signing, as there may be hidden costs if you lose or in other situations, which may mean you do have to pay some costs even if you do not recover any monies.

Legal Expenses Insurance Policy. Such policies are normally attached to other insurance policies such as employer’s liability or home contents insurance. The downside to legal expenses insurance is that you often have to meet certain criteria before funding is agreed. They also normally only apply once a dispute has arisen, and do not provide legal assistance to help you resolve a matter before getting to this stage.  The benefit is if funding is approved for your claim your legal costs and disbursements are covered, and often that of the other party’s should the case not succeed. There are different types of legal expenses insurance and it is often worth shopping around to find one that suits you; for example some will cover your legal costs no matter what and some will cover any compensation payable if you lose. Obviously such policies are likely to attract a higher premium. Remember, if you have legal expenses insurance, you have the freedom to choose your own solicitor and do not have to use the panel solicitors instructed by your insurance company.

Defence Union. If you are part of a defence union you will have access to a number of services including legal representation. However, the defence union are not obliged to follow your instructions, and can decide, due to commercial reasons, to settle a claim that you do not what to settle. This can leave you with a sense of injustice and frustration. Another consideration when choosing a defence union over standard indemnity insurance is that you will have no freedom of choice when it comes to choosing the solicitor or barrister that you want. Non-discretionary insurance policies are legally obliged to give freedom of choice in this regard.

After the Event Insurance. As the name suggests this is insurance you purchase after the dispute has arisen. It will normally cover your disbursements and the other side’s disbursements and legal costs should your claim fail. The policy therefore does not provide cover for your legal costs, which you will still need to fund. However, if your claim is in the civil costs and you succeed then you will recover some of your legal costs and disbursements from the losing party.

Do it yourself. There is always the option of representing yourself in proceedings. The benefit is you have complete control over your case and you do not have any legal costs. Beware; if the claim is in the civil courts and you lose you could have to pay the winning party’s legal costs. If you do represent yourself, remember to take a step back from the case; it is all too easy to get caught up in proving every wrong or to throw every allegation into the mix, which can often detract from the strengths in the case. You can consider instructing a solicitor to give you an initial advice so you know what direction to head in. You can also seek advice from a solicitor on an ad hoc basis to help you at various stages which can help keep the cost of litigation down.

How you fund a claim will depend on the type of claim being pursued. A solicitor has a duty to provide you with advice on your funding options, not just their fees, so you can ask them to explain the options available to you. Also make sure you understand any potential costs consequences of losing a claim, as you may want to seek insurance to cover such costs.

Laura Pearce, Senior Solicitor

A number of new features and opportunities on GDPUK in 2017. Get in touch if you have any questions. Contact details below.

Satisfied customers

We have had a number of satisfied advertisers recently, which pleases us immensely. Thanks to all our customers for their continued use of the site and all the new clients we have taken on recently. We wrote about an extremely satisfied client a few weeks ago, you can read it below, their offer was extremely well received and resulted in a number of sales, which is very pleasing to hear.

Blog on a satisfied GDPUK Client.
 

New refreshed website

As you will have noted, our website is refreshed and less crowded which we believe makes it look clearer and hopefully easier to navigate. If you have any feedback or would like to provide feedback - please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
 

20th Year Anniversary

2017 marks the 20th anniversary of GDPUK, something we have mentioned a number of times and will keep mentioning! We are close to putting together plans for a 20th anniversary Party and Conference in November and it is something that we would like as many of our members to attend as possible. Would be fantastic to celebrate with as many people as possible.
 

Super Leaderboard

Our leaderboard banner continues to be extremely popular with our advertisers. It is 728x90px and appears at the top of all our pages as you can see above. A recent option that we added to the site, is the super leaderboard which appears in the same space as the leaderboard but is super sized - 970x90, giving you even greater brand awareness and exposure on every page of GDPUK.
 

Number of banners at once

Via our DFP software, our customers can actually run more than one advert at once in a given month. This means one of our customers can actually advertise two things or more at once. One of our clients MC Dental / Repairs is currently doing using this method to advertise a number of offers at once. Added value from GDPUK!
 

News and Blogs

We continue to publish daily news and blogs, that get read by thousands of healthcare professionals on a weekly basis. Via our daily emails, tweets and facebook posts, we help to educate and inform our readers with the latest dental news and opinion. Something we are very proud of.

Banners are now appearing on the right hand side of the news and blogs. Considering the articles attract plenty of readers on a daily basis, it provides even more exposure for your brand.

As you can see GDPUK continues to evolve and improve, even in its 20th year! Thanks for reading.

In part 5 of the blog series, we are looking at brand awareness and its part in the online advertising journey.

Online advertising can be used to drive traffic to your site and build brand awareness. Effectively targeted campaigns can create brand influencers and reach complementary audiences.

The online space that gets booked, helps to establish your online presence, and get your potential customers / consumers excited and interested about who you are and what you have to offer. As mentioned in previous blogs, online advertising enables brands to focus on their ideal audience and tailor messages that improve both recall and engagement with the brand.

To be easily recognisable has to be the aim for every brand within their sector, which then builds your brand awareness. Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a product. Brand awareness is particularly important when launching new products and services; and for a company to differentiate similar products and services from its competitors.

So using online advertising can be part of building brand awareness and making your target audience more aware of your brand. The more aware your audience are of your brand, the easier it is to convert the awareness into sales.

What options do we have available to create and improve brand awareness?

• Traditional advertising
• Online Advertising
• Sponsoring an event.
• Publicity stunt
• Word of mouth
• Reviews / testimonials
• Content / Blogs

So as you can see when building a brand, we have a number of options to play with but  what is the role of online advertising?

Online advertising plays a critical role in brand management and awareness whether at the corporate, retail or product level. With the help of advertising you can increase your brand's value and then it helps you to gain the new customers that we all look for :)

The end goal of any online advertising is to eventually convert all leads that you gather to actual sales. Whether it be an awareness or educational campaign, all businesses engage in advertising to ultimately generate sales! By creating a strong presence online, with whatever medium you choose, your investment in advertising and marketing will produce results and ultimately bring the extra revenue we all strive for.

So online advertising becomes a major part of building a brand and brand awareness. Online needs to be taken as seriously as the other more traditional mediums in helping to build that ultimate goal we all share of making your brand synonymous with the product or service you offer.

Thanks for reading part 5.

If your best friend won’t tell you what do you do? A different problem.

“I’m feeling a little bit under the weather”. Another vague absence. Karen was good team member, a hard worker and, with the exception of a couple of days a month, punctual and reliable. The principal and the practice manager didn’t know what to do; they had tried the usual approaches mixing concern and compassion but had got nowhere.

A recent survey of 10,000 office workers has found that most one-off sickies are due to hangovers with “just hating the job” coming in second. Neither was the case with Karen, she never drank and clearly enjoyed her career.

“Alun, I wonder could you do her appraisal when you’re next visiting the practice? We’re struggling with what to do about her absences.” Sometimes a different face, voice or ear will bring results. This time was a success and I was able to get to the heart of Karen’s problem. I found her to be a sensitive soul, caring and concerned but in the horns of a dilemma.

The practice consisted of six surgeries with one principal, four full and part-time associates and part-time three hygienists. They operated an egalitarian system where, in order to ensure their were no opportunities for favourites or cliques, the nurses moved around on what appeared to be a fairly complicated rota. This way they worked with associates, principal, hygienists, did their turn in the LDU and had a share of being a “float”.

It turned out that Karen’s absences always coincided with her being due to work with Pam, one of the associates. Pam was experienced, had worked in a variety of practices, hospital departments and had also had a spell working in the community. It was acknowledged she could be a bit brusque with both patients and nurses, but her work was good, she ran to time and grossed well. She was recently divorced, had no children and lived alone.

I managed to get to the heart of things when I met Karen. She was under the impression that the visiting Business Coach was there to see her for some sort of disciplinary matter but I soon disabused her of this and she relaxed. We proceeded with her appraisal, which went well, and having gained her confidence I introduced the matter of her absences. She eventually shared with me the fact that Pam suffered from what used to be labelled as “B.O.” - in other words she was smelly. All the nurses were aware of it but for some reason Karen was particularly sensitive and had needed to run to the toilet to be sick the last time that she worked with Pam. She had now got herself into a real state in case the same thing happened again. She had started to believe that she was the one with the problem and hence the absences.

When I asked the principal and the practice manager they both admitted to having noticed Pam’s odour but had presumed that it was a rare event. Bromhidrosis or body odour, is a common phenomenon in post-pubertal individuals and can rarely become pathologic if it interferes with the life of the individual concerned.

So far, so good we had a diagnosis, but how to treat the problem?

As I was there, and Pam was there that day, it was felt that there would be less of an embarrassment if I were to broach the subject with her. Fine I thought, the client is always right and I have to earn my corn. It wasn’t something that I had done before and I am all for new experiences, if it went badly then I would get the blame and could walk away for another three months.

We met after work and I gave myself 15 minutes to achieve the objectives which were, to point out to Pam as subtly but effectively that there had been comments, to find out if she realised that there might be a problem and then work out a way to deal with it.

Her reaction, thankfully, was not one of denial or to attempt to blame someone for “sneaking” on her. She was horrified and visibly upset. It turned out that she had rather “let herself go” (her words) following her divorce and some days it was all she could do to drag herself out of bed and often didn’t get round to showering or bathing. She wore a tunic at work but wore it over clothes and we agreed that a change to scrubs might help. Most, but not all, of the clinicians wore them and as they were laundered by the practice it removed any home washing. An easier conversation than I feared with, hopefully, a positive result.

When I checked in with the practice owner during our regular coaching calls Pam had obviously had a bit of an awakening. The odour problem had gone and she had taken ownership of the problem by taking the time to ask each nurse at the start of her next session with them to please tell her if there was any recurrence.

Your ability to target goes beyond reaching just your target audience. Online also offers advertisers a limitless creative canvas.

For some reason, there is a common misconception that online ads are of poor quality, when in fact digital advertising provides the opportunity to be highly engaging with video and other rich media. Using flash and in-banner video ads can increase brand recognition and highlight your competitive edge. In the instance, when one of your ads is under-performing  A/B test your copy, your image, your headline and serve ads that are as dynamic as the online space in which they are living. A well-designed banner ad can turn your digital campaign from good to great.

At the beginning banners were extremely basic but now the digital landscape is incredibly clever and innovative. Below is a link to some amazing online campaigns from the last year or so. Some of the designs and creativity on show is breathtaking and shows how clever a banner ad can be made, which certainly helps to catch the attention of your target audience.

This Audi banner ad is fun and engaging - https://digitalsynopsis.com/audi-curves/

Or a GSK one which will remind you of your party days! - https://digitalsynopsis.com/glaxosmithkline-party/

The full list can be found here.

Plenty of information from Google about creating compelling content here.

Thanks for reading. I hope this has got you thinking of the possibilities for your next marketing campaign.....

Part 3 of the series on Targeting can be found here.

Patient Plan Direct’s commercial director, Simon Reynolds, discusses key considerations in managing a patient membership plan ‘in-house’

Often the rationale for a DIY project is the perception that doing ‘it’ ourselves is likely to be lower cost and will enable us to achieve our desired outcomes in line with specific objectives. We adopt the mind set of “how hard can it be” and get to work.

In some instances, with the right planning and commitment a successful DIY project can be highly rewarding. However, in other cases we can be left to reflect on blood, sweat, tears and challenges that were far greater than we had anticipated. In hindsight, perhaps it may have been a better option to have turned to professional support in the first instance.

When it comes to patient membership and capitation plans many practices may have considered, or have already adopted, administering their own patient plans ‘in-house’. Let’s face it, when stripping back to its bare bones the work involved in administering a patient plan, it isn’t rocket science. The basics being; determining the care and benefits included in your plans, setting plan prices, collecting regular payments from patients and promoting your plans effectively to encourage uptake from patients.

However, as with many things in life the devil can often be in the detail and there are important considerations that may be overlooked when opting to administer a patient plan in-house rather than the outsourced option of working with a plan provider.

Direct debit vs. Standing order

Often mistaken as the same thing, there are significant differences between standing order and direct debit payments – the most likely means of managing regular plan payments. A standing order is an instruction set up by the payer i.e. your patient via their bank, which can limit the ease of patients joining your plan in practice. If a patient cancels their standing order you will not be notified, instead you’ll have to perform manual checks every month. Moreover, managing periodic plan price increases can prove somewhat challenging as a change to the value of a standing order requires each patient to amend their individual standing orders – a tedious task for patients that is not under your practice’s control.

Managing plan payments by direct debit on the other hand offers the beneficiary (your practice) greater control. This is an instruction by the payer giving permission for your practice to collect a regular amount, which can be amended with advance notification to the payer. However, obtaining sponsorship in to the direct debit scheme via your bank can be a lengthy process and thereafter you’ll have to utilise some form of Bacs approved platform to manage collections. This can prove complicated and costly in addition to the processing charges your bank is likely to apply.

Admin: Time versus Real cost

Time is money. Often the reality of managing a patient plan in-house can be more administratively demanding and time consuming than you may think. Preparing and submitting collection files, identifying payment cancelations, managing plan related communications to patients, creating promotional material, training your team in promoting your plans and so much more can be a real bind on your time. No matter who takes on the role of managing an ‘in-house’ plan, there’s every chance this time could be better spent elsewhere in delivering first-class care and building a successful practice.

When you come to sell your practice

In consideration of the complexities that can be involved in managing a plan in-house, when you come to sell your practice potential buyers may be put off. Moreover, in some instances if you have your own sponsorship in to the direct debit scheme, it is not a given that the new vendor will be able to obtain their own sponsorship via their bank to take on the goodwill of plan patients. Finally, historical records of plan collections via a third party can prove more favourable throughout any due diligence processes.

In summary

For some practices, managing their patient plans in-house may be the most effective means of offering patients a plan. However, for many, utilising the services of a trusted plan provider is much more likely to be the more time and cost efficient method. Working with a plan provider does not have to mean huge administration costs and overhead. There are more plan providers than ever before to choose from, each offering their unique service proposition, support and fee structure. It is simply a case of taking the time to discover each provider and working out which is the best fit for your practice.

Patient Plan Direct is a membership plan provider recognised for its low-cost admin fees and is also the winner of the 2016 Dental industry awards – Outstanding Business of the year (under 25 employees). Plan launch, Provider transfer and NHS conversion experts.

www.patientplandirect.co.uk

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08448486888

As a marketer, do you know the profile of the perfect customer for your business?
Of course you do :)

Online advertising gives you the ability to target and retarget the ideal prospects you identify for your business.

When advertising online, you will choose a website or community where you believe that your perfect customer will be a user or reader. Online ads reduce the chances of advertising to the wrong group of people, thus wasting your budget and time. This means that your campaign can be targeted at your perfect customer and help you reach your desired target audience.

When it comes to social media advertising, retargeting will serve ads based on prior engagement, enabling you to identify your ideal customer profile. Once you know what your customers look like, you will know just who to target and where to find all similar users online, making sure they too are being served your ads. You can focus on customers based on their geographic location, gender, age, behaviour patterns on social media and special interests.

This means that when for example you want to attract women to your latest endodontic course, you have the ability to target a population as specific as women, age 40-65, who have endodontics listed as their profession or an interest. This will help to make your campaign extremely targeted and hopefully successful.

The ability to target your perfect customer, whether through a specific special interest website or through social media, gives you a whole variety of advertising options that have never been possible before. Popular options include display, search, email marketing and affiliate marketing. This gives advertisers the chance to communicate with the audience they want to target, using the right technique, whatever their particular objectives are for that campaign.


Thanks for reading.

Part 2 of our series on Online Advertising can be found here.

Part 4 - Creative Opportunities.

Recently, I have been mulling over issues of personal conduct.  This has led me to the specific topic of this blog which is sexual misconduct or otherwise inappropriate sexual behaviour. It looks at historic and current cases and I hope is just as interesting and thought-provoking for you readers.  Before anyone accuses me of misandry, I will state that I did not come across any examples of ‘females behaving badly’.

From discussions with colleagues and on other platforms it appears that the reason why the GDC have a mandate over personal conduct is not well understood.  The Standards relevant to personal conduct and behaviour are:

Principle One

• 1.3.1  You must justify the trust that patients, the public and your colleagues place in you by always acting honestly and fairly in your dealings with them. This applies to any business or education activities in which you are involved as well as to your professional dealings.
• 1.3.2  You must make sure you do not bring the profession into disrepute.

Principle Nine

• 9.1  Ensure that your conduct, both at work and in your personal life, justifies patients’ trust in you and the public’s trust in the dental profession.

There are some difficulties here that need consideration:

1. Whether the relevant standard is breached is ultimately partly dependent on the personal and moral views of the GDC employees and committees as the case progresses;
2. Where can the line be drawn on what is an acceptable personal behaviour or boundary to maintain? Do we even know? Or is it rightly kept vague to move with our ever-changing world?

From a legal point of view case law dictates that surgeons, dentists, journalists, headmasters and even professional footballers are role models whereby ‘higher standards of conduct can rightly be expected by the public’.   This statement came about as a result of an unfaithful footballer involved in a threesome wanting to keep it out of the media believe it or not.  I’m not sure that Lord Woolf, when he made his judgement anticipated that today’s role models would also include reality TV stars who happily have sex on live TV but there we go.

The Indicative Outcomes Guidance (IOG) is always worth a read to understand how sanctions are arrived at and the reasoning behind it.  The purpose of a sanction is to both protect the public and the wider public interest.  What may on the face of it seem draconian and intrusive to a registrant’s right to a private life actually stems from GDC working extremely hard to maintain the reputation of and public confidence in the profession and they actually deserve credit for this.  Poor behaviour, even if it does not involve any patients has the potential to seriously undermine public confidence in the profession and bring the profession into disrepute.  With regard to sexual misconduct the IOG says:

So essentially, sexual misconduct allegations are likely to progress to a full hearing.

Sexual misconduct is essentially an abuse of power:

With all that in mind, here are some relevant case examples:

Dr AB kissed a dental nurse on the back of the neck without consent, and this was determined to be sexually motivated.  Dr AB denied the charges, gave inconsistent evidence, maintained that his actions had simply been misunderstood, accused the nurse of being racist and of wanting money from him as well as thinking he would just turn up and have his side of the story accepted as the truth.  This didn’t impress the panel and he was suspended with immediate effect for 12 months to hopefully give him enough time to have a really good think about all of this.  The Committee felt that the registrant lacked any insight, and pretty much knocked out all the defence submissions.  A couple of interesting lines from the determination are:
 

“The Committee was also aware that you are older than Dental Nurse A and in a position of professional power over her………

It [the committee] considered that dental nurses and colleagues do form part of the public and are included in the considerations of protecting the public.”

Therefore, professional boundaries do not just apply to Principals and patients.  Associates must also maintain professional boundaries with their supporting colleagues.

Mr CD was sentenced to three years imprisonment for sexual assault on a female; a conviction that was upheld on appeal.  The events surrounding the assault were the heads of charge and the FtP hearing considered both this misconduct and subsequent criminal conviction.   Misconduct was easily established, and the committee rejected the sanction of a suspension on the basis of no apology or demonstrable remorse from Mr CD and he was erased.  Placing your penis toward a patient’s mouth without their consent is possibly the most serious breach of professional boundaries, however it is interesting in this case that the sanction of erasure is automatically 5 years, which obviously exceeds the duration of his criminal sentence. Whether he ought to be allowed the chance to even reapply to the register is debatable.

Dr EF accepted a caution for kerb crawling but failed to report this to the GDC.  The panel disregarded the difficult personal circumstances reportedly faced by this registrant at the time of the incident as they did not mitigate against the seriousness of the conduct.  They also said:

“The Committee noted that the matters before it were not clinical in nature. It noted that there had been no harm to patients. However, it bore in mind that its primary function is not only to protect patients but also to take account of the wider public interest, which includes maintaining confidence in the dental profession and the GDC as a regulator, and upholding proper standards of behaviour.”

Dr EF was given a reprimand which will be on the public register for 12 months and as it will form part of the fitness to practise history it will be always be disclosable to any future employer and authorities in other jurisdictions.

A consensual sexual relationship with a patient can cost you a 3-month suspension as Dr GH found out not to mention on-going negative PR with the story still being available on Google many years later.  Dr IJ also knows only too well the damage that can be done after being reported to the GDC by a disgruntled ex-husband of a patient who lied in his witness statement about having seen ‘explicit’ text messages such that the case progressed to a full hearing before it was concluded with no case to answer. Press stories with a ‘guilty as charged’ tone to them relating to his case pre-hearing are also still available online. 

Are we beginning to see the problem with reputational damage to the profession yet?  The press can quite easily defame registrants with their reporting of potentially salacious cases before and during a hearing, and those pages will remain online even when a registrant is vindicated.  For this reason, relationships with patients are just somewhere no dental professional should ever go, aside from the fact that it is seen as being totally unprofessional and a serious abuse of position.  If you find you are heading down the route of a genuine relationship with a patient for goodness sake find them another dentist PDQ.

Moving on from relationships with patients, another potential danger zone is with employees and students.  When they rely on you to pay their wages or pass their finals there is a clear imbalance of power. If you have a fling with an employee be prepared for the risk of sexual harassment claims and grievances forever more. University lecturers may be accused of offering grades for sexual favours or bias (either positive or negative).  Having a relationship with a student is often considered a gross misconduct offence these days.   If you are a partner and you start fooling round with the staff on the quiet prepare for a total breakdown in trust.  It is just best not to go there and if you don’t believe me or feel I am being overly alarmist, ask any employment lawyer about historic compensations awards for harassment claims spanning back over years and years and partnership disputes.

At the time of writing a university lecturer is awaiting a hearing facing allegations of engaging in sexual activity in his office, and then being dishonest about it during the University investigation. We will have to wait to see if this would have made it to the GDC save for the dishonesty aspect.

For those who think that a fumble on the dental chair with one of the nurses is acceptable I am sorry to disappoint you but it is not, and it never was.

In the Mr EF case part of the charges included:

7. Whilst working with Miss LM, you had a consensual sexual relationship during the course of which on one or more occasions on Practice premises during surgery hours or shortly thereafter you:

8. Your conduct as above at 7 was:

The Committee found Head 8(c) proved because, by your admissions, other people were present in the practice and therefore you put yourself at risk of being discovered."

The determination also says:

The Committee has found that you behaved inappropriately and unprofessionally towards four dental nurses who worked with you, and that your behaviour towards three of them was indecent. As a partner in the practice, working directly with these dental nurses, you were in a position of authority over them – which you abused.  Furthermore you conducted sexual relations with Miss B in the practice, at times when you could have been discovered.

Mr EF was erased for this and whole host of other sexual misconduct misdemeanours including touching and making inappropriate comments to other nurses.

So even though many feel that consenting adults are entitled to some degree of privacy, the simple fact that they might be discovered in the act by a member of the public is enough to take things to the level of indecency.  Oh dear. This also makes it clear that consent has absolutely no relevance in excusing occurrences of sexual misconduct or otherwise inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Wherever there is a hierarchical relationship or an imbalance of power there is potential for actual abuse or allegation of abuse of power.  An allegation is all it takes, and I know of 2 instances where registrants have faced criminal charges based on false allegations.

Personal conduct involving sexual behaviour has an astonishing potential to bring out the widest range of opinion on what is acceptable or not if the recent debates on Facebook are anything to go by!   I am sure we all know of successful relationships between dentists and employees, lecturers and students, even dentists and former patients.  But this is really an area in which to tread extremely carefully as if you get it wrong the consequences are huge.

We recently received a call from a client, that ran an advertising campaign last year on GDPUK. They were offering free trials of their new product for members of our community to try in their practice and also to provide constructive feedback on this particular product to the manufacturer.

Ten units were sent out by the manufacturer and each dental practice was given a couple of month's trial to see how the product performed.

Rather impressively, 8 out of 10 of these trials turned into a purchase of the product, which obviously shows the confidence the manufacturer had in giving the dentists a trial and also that the dentist received impressive results when using the equipment, that they knew the product would help improve patient care and safety.

From our perspective, it shows that an attractive offer, catches the attention of our 10,000 strong community and leads to sales for the manufacturer. The advertiser found their target audience, produced a campaign that caught the attention of our readers and turned it into sales.

Always great to receive positive feedback from our clients.

If you would like further information on how we can help you reach your target audience, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.gdpuk.com/more/about

Insight: - "The capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something."

Welcome to part 2 of our series on online advertising. In this second blog, we look at insight and what an important element of advertising it is. Insight in advertising is seen as a huge advantage of modern day advertising.

We all strive for more insight in our lives, working out why things have gone a certain way, a certain decision has been made and looking to understand things fully. This is also true in relation of social media and advertising. The modern world strives for insight and analysis into everything we do and think.

Online advertising provides you with endless insight allowing you to become a more effective marketer. Marketers went from having no data 20 years to more data than we know what to do with. Online advertising has helped solve this problem because of the visibility and access to data and of course reminds us of the famous line from John Wanamaker:

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

With online advertising you begin to get an idea of where your traffic is coming from and who is clicking on the banners or social media posts. This is the first major advantage of online advertising, it provides us with incredible insight and a stronger knowledge base than ever before.

Therefore, this makes online advertising unique. Running a campaign online provides us with the chance to show activity throughout the entire online consumer journey. Common activities include sales, newsletter sign-ups, the number of times an advert is displayed (ad impressions), the number of times people click on an advert to visit a microsite or landing page (click through), the number of times people have interacted with an advert, sign-ups and how much they have interacted on social media.

Although having more knowledge is not always beneficial, when we are looking to market our brand or product we want as much knowledge as possible. So therefore having access to a range of data and information about our campaigns is a fantastic improvement on marketing in the past and gives online advertising a huge advantage.

Thanks for reading.

Part 1 Here.
Part 3. Targeting.

About GDPUK

As mentioned previously, 2017 marks the 20th year of GDPUK.

GDPUK.com is for dentists and dental professionals to discuss all aspects of their profession, their practice and their business, centred on the UK. Subjects dissected have been diverse, from tips on simple techniques to guidance on buying major equipment, to discussions on the various practice management software packages, and of ongoing developments in British dental politics.

Moderated in Manchester, England by Dr Tony Jacobs BDS, the Group was started in Summer 1997, and continues to grow rapidly.

GDPUK.com also publishes UK dental news, and has had many exclusive stories, as well as being able to publish the latest news relevant to dentistry before other dental news providers. In addition GDPUK blogs, both editorial and product updates are well read throughout the dental profession and industry. A unique feature is the @DentistGoneBadd visual blog.

The group now has nearly 10,000 members, and attracts interest and sponsorship from major companies involved in the dental trade.

Blog Series

To mark this anniversary, we thought we would put together a 20 (get it!) part series of blogs about online advertising and all the advantages of it. Over the next 19 blogs, I am going to look into detail at the reasons that online advertising is effective and why a medium like an online community can be perfect for your brand …. Especially If you are looking to reach a target audience.

Over the series of blogs, we will explore all the elements of online advertising from how you can be creative, the opportunity to increase brand awareness, plus the adaptability and flexibility of online advertising.

Advertising online can no longer be viewed as a new medium, it is extremely well established but we hope this series can convince the sceptics but also prove useful to anyone who is looking to do some powerful marketing of their brand or product in the year ahead. Please get in touch we any queries or questions.

Hope you enjoy this series of blogs. Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year.

At the start of 2017, we thought we would take a look back at one of the major events of the past year, and the dramatic effect it has had on both us and …the World.

When the team at the JFH Law’s offices were asked for their views on what this should be, everyone was in agreement that ‘Mug Gate’ was that very event.

‘Mug Gate?’ we hear you all asking, ‘how did I miss that?!’

Fear not; in this blog we will set out the issues surrounding the controversial ‘Mug Gate’ and how you can prevent it happening at your practice. 

It all began on 14^th December 2016, when John Howey, Partner at JFH Law, announced he had broken a J mug washing up. ‘The handle just came off when I was washing out the inside’ he confirmed. At first we all laughed and there was some light hearted banter about Mr Howey not knowing his own strength; but things then took a turn for the worst.

Julia Furley, Partner at JFH Law, recalls:

At first it was all a bit of fun. We were laughing away, but then I looked around the room and noticed that everyone was drinking from a J mug. It became immediately clear to me that John couldn’t have broken a J mug. I therefore made the management decision to investigate further, attending the kitchen and conducting an audit of the firm’s J, F and H mugs.”

After Ms Furley had completed the stock-take it was discovered that all of the F mugs had mysteriously disappeared. It might be helpful at this point for the reader to note that we have a variety of mugs with the letters J, F and H on them. With the F mugs all gone, we no longer had our identity!

On 15^th December 2016 Ms Furley vigorously interrogated all the staff as to their movements over the previous year and whether they had had any accidents involving an F Mug. Everyone denied having broken a mug. The plot thickened.

Anges Biel, paralegal, was tasked with making enquires with the cleaner, after completing her investigations she confirmed ‘the cleaner is denying any breakages but I have my doubts. I found out his name is Franz Ferdinand’. We were certainly suspicious. Could it be that Mr Ferdinand supplementing his own collection of mugs with our Fs?  

Whilst we now have the expense of re-stocking our kitchen with F mugs, we are also left wondering; what if M&S no longer stock lettered mugs?

Everyone at the office has been left unsettled by these unfolding events. Jigna Verakia, solicitor, provide us with this quote:

I just don’t know why someone would want to take all of our F mugs. We are a close team but I am now left suspicious of those around me. I have my own mug and I now take this home to protect it. I just don’t know what I would do if anything happened to it.

The mystery continues here at JFH Law but what lessons can your dental practice learn from Mug Gate?

Laura Pearce, employment solicitor at JFH Law, advises:

The morale of this story is; don’t trust your staff. Theft is theft is theft. Make sure all surgery property is under lock and key and only the managers can access it. Have a signing in and out form for each time staff members want to use a mug or a pen. Search bags as staff are leaving and undertake random stripe searches. If you find that anyone has taken anything, shout very loudly ‘you’re fired’ and escort them off the premises.

We also spoke to Duncan Roberts, criminal solicitor, to get his take on the situation:

Don’t bother phoning the police; deal with it yourself. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth has always been my motto.

If you need any advice about marching staff of your premises or medieval punishments, please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance. And if anyone sees any of our F mugs, please let us know immediately; there will be a reward for anyone who helps in their safe return.

How to deal with gross misconduct

On a more serious note, dealing with gross misconduct can be difficult; when you work in a small practice, if a member of staff has taken something that does not belong to them, trust can break down and emotions may run high.

Before you jump the gun and start firing staff, take a step back and follow this simple 3 step process to help you avoid landing in hot water.

Step 1 – Investigate

Call the employee into a meeting and question them about the incident. This should be informal and a meeting to gather information not make allegations. You do not need to write to the employee beforehand inviting them to the meeting. They do not have any right to a representative at the investigatory meeting.

After the meeting, consider whether you need to suspend the employee. This should be a last resort and not an automatic response to allegations of misconduct.

If someone else reported the incident, obtain a statement from them too. Is there any other evidence you can obtain to help you make a decision?

At the end of this process gather together the information you have and decide whether there is sufficient evidence to take the matter via a formal route.

It is at this point you can weigh up the seriousness of the allegation and decide whether an informal chat with the employee would be enough to rectify the behaviour. Some companies take a hard line and consider any theft amounts to gross misconduct, whilst others may view the theft of a pen as less serious and give a simple ‘slap on the wrist’ warning not to do it again. Remember whatever line you take make sure you treat all employees the same.

Step 2 – Disciplinary Meeting

If you consider the allegation is serious enough to take formal action, write to the employee and invite them to a disciplinary meeting. The letter needs to clearly set out the allegations and state that if found prove it could result in summary dismissal. At this meeting, the employee is entitled to be represented by either a trade union representation or work colleague, and you should remind them of this in the letter. Finally, make sure all evidence you have obtained is sent to the employee so they can comment on it.

You should give the employee time to prepare for the disciplinary meeting; how much time you give will depend on how much information there is. 

At the meeting put the allegations to the employee and give them a chance to respond.

We would recommend adjourning the hearing to make your decision. If you do this and carry out any further investigations, you will need to re-convene the hearing and give the employee a chance to comment on any new information that comes to light.

Write to the employee with the outcome. Set out in detail why you have come to your decision. If you do dismiss the employee, offer the right of appeal.

Step 3 – Appeal

If the employee appeals the decision, you should invite them to an appeal meeting. This should be heard by someone different to the disciplinary hearing and more senior if possible.

Again the employee is entitled to be accompanied at this meeting.

Hold the meeting and let the employee put forward their grounds of appeal. Following the meeting, write to the employee with the final outcome.

The above three step process is based on the ACAS code of practice, which you should always look to follow. You should also consider what your own policies say and try to follow them where possible.

If you need advice or assistance on dealing with a disciplinary procedure, please contract Laura Pearce on 0207 388 1658 or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Another New Year rolls towards us with still nothing particularly concrete planned regarding the new new new NHS Dental Contract. Ok, so there are prototypes running, but there doesn't seem to be any actual date that will see the beginning of a brave new world where all things NHS Dentistry will be rosy once again.

Prototypes seems to be the new buzz word rather than pilots, but unlike a pilot flying a new course, a prototype seems to be something cobbled together that might just possibly fly, but then again might not. The British are pioneers at making prototypes actually fly, but usually in the aeronautical sense. For this to happen it involves a degree of advance planning on the drawing boards, before making models, testing them in a wind tunnel, before finally making a version that might actually fly. There are some occasions where a test pilot has taken the front seat in a prototype only to have met a swift end when something has not quite been right with the design. At least the engineers then can go back to the drawing board and hopefully redesign a problem out of the next version.

But this is where the analogy with the NHS prototypes ends. Instead of learning from the mistakes and problems with the prototypes and design out the problem, the DoH apparently just ignore the data they don't like and carry on with the data they do like. All still fuelled by the ubiquitous UDA. Going back to the analogy, this would be like the designing a solar powered plane expected to fly at 600mph where the wings fall off at 500mph and you can only fly it at night. But since it looks really really good and the Government like it, you can get loads of people on board, so they'll order them. Anyhow, if it crashes, the Government will always blame pilot error. 

People working in the prototypes seem to have varying experiences; those in the blend A models (having a capitation for all band 1 treatments and claiming band 2 and 3's)  are reporting more issues than those in the Blend B (Both band 1 and 2 as capitation and band 3 to be claimed). But what is being reported generally is that access is going to go down with these new ways of working, whilst it is increasing difficult to keep the capitation numbers to target. Access is the only mantra the DoH have, and whilst they pay lip service to quality outcomes, you can rest assured that the only bit of quality they will be interested in will be how much they can claw back when the quality outcomes can't be met. Some of those in the prototypes don't even know how the quality aspect is being calculated as there don't seem to be figure made available (particularly to associates). Given that this is 10% of the contract value, not having the information on what you are being measured on seems to be a significant problem to me.

Having an entirely capitation based system (which will be what the BDA will try for) is better for practitioners ONLY when you have a government that isn't obsessed with output and not interested in the actual quality. By expecting the practitioners to provide the quality as part of their obligations ethically to their patients, and regulated by the GDC, the DoH can quite happily still place the blame at the door of the individual performers on any contract. Its win-win for them still. Anyone who thinks any new contract will be a dental utopia should probably consider leaving the profession now. Almost all commentators say that there is already little enough time to provide the output expected to meet UDA targets; the new system seems even more geared to allowing practices to struggle to hit the new targets. Even successful prototype practices are struggling with the capitation element, as they need many ore new patients to ensure the targets are boing met, but with no space to treat these often high needs patients until 2 or more months down the line, one must wonder how these increase targets are going to benefit good patient care in the brave new world.

Here is now data that shows the amount of principals in practice is reducing, with the increase in associates being proportional to that. However the change is quite extreme, with something like 83% of dentists now working as associates. This will be the norm in the future in my opinion, as with a downward pressure on the income of dentists generally it will become more and more difficult for associates to begin to invest in a practice of their own. I can see parallels with the optical and legal industries here, and incomes of £30,000 for associates becoming routine. Not only that, with the change in the way the new contract may be calculated, and the 'UBER' ruling recently about when self employed might not actually be self employed, then I can foresee a time in the near future when associates become true employees, with the associated increase in liability the employer then has (national insurances, sick pay etc) to cover reducing the wage structure still further. I am also aware of practices who have had to make members of the team redundant, such as therapists as they cannot make the system work for them due to the economics and logistics that seem to be inherent. Still, that's not going to be the DoH's fault is it? Just the dentists who don't run their practice the way the DoH want them to.

Don't get me wrong though; there will still be some highly entrepreneurial dentists out there who will continue to make a very good income from the NHS, but they will be at the head of larger practices or mini-corporates, and backed either by the fortunes made in this system, family money, or outside investors who can see the business model working. There is nothing actually wrong with this either, because fundamentally dentistry is going to be a service industry in the same way as a mobile phone company is, and you don't see all the employees in that industry getting the same salary as the chief executive. It becomes almost irrelevant that many of the 'fee earners' in dentistry are highly educated individuals supported by a well trained team; dentistry is just another 'widget' producing industry for investors to make a profit out of at some point.

One of the reasons that the profitability of corporate practices has been lower has to be due to the income proportions taken by associates. I have no issue personally with what associates earn, but the days of 50% are long gone in this new world, and probably 35% is more realistic for the future. Many law firms expect their fee earners to generate at least 3 to 4 times their salary in order to justify their continued employment. Only in this way will the corporates become as profitable as they need to be to survive long term, and they know this. Coupled with an increased difficulty in earning the udas if the new contract is like the prototypes, with quality frameworks and increased access, then a downward pressure on the highest cost base that can be influenced is certain. In any dental business of a certain size with associates, then I would be pretty sure that the highest 2 costs will be associate wages and staff wages. Only by controlling this aspect, and in an even harsher manner than previously, will the profitability that is needed for continued business survival start to be produced. How fast this will then follow in the smaller practices which have proportionally higher cost bases due to the lack of bulk buying powers is an academic argument.

To finally top this, the BDA  released a press release in the last week indicating just how poor the morale is within the profession. Although this has been known by the profession since at least the time Sheffield United last won a football trophy, they have now decided to let the public know the blindingly obvious. Once again the BDA's public condemnation of a system has been about as vocal as a mute mouse with a sore throat. It should be front page news that half of the UK's NHS dentists are thinking of leaving the NHS, but I haven't seen it in the papers today, but if it does appear it will be spun against us. I was informed (as I was writing this piece) that the BDA are now threatening legal action against NHS England for the patient charge revenue deductions made due to their interpretation of the 2 month rule. But will they get the spin right when they tell the public? Or will the Daily Mail run the 'Greedy Dentists Sue Cash Strapped NHS for more money' headlines because we haven't got a good PR image? At least the BDA are starting to do something positive, but the message has to be managed to our benefit.

So it remains to actually be seen just what might happen in the brave new world of NHS dentistry. Is morale going to improve, or will the DoH continue the beating of the profession until it does? Will there be more time for the quality that our profession is expected to provide? Will there be the correct funding for a First World service?

 Sadly, I think we all know the answers to those questions if we are honest with ourselves.

Tis the season to be jolly
Fah la la la lah, la lah la lah

Well after an autumn break to see how the land takes up the fertiliser of restful thought, we approach the Christmas break with a need for reflection.

What has 2016 thrown at us?

A reason to be cheerful? A season of Goodwill? A sense of hope?

There are three major areas that seem to be affecting the profession at this time.

There is the issue of the GDC and its new Case Examiners.

It is too early to say if this will genuinely make a difference. What we want is for the GDC to stop trying to be a Complaints House, taking everything on no matter how trivial.

Dr Colin Campbell, a widely-respected colleague in the Midlands, with a personal history of the dealings of the bludgeon that is FtP, clearly thinks not – again with personal experience.

But then again, why would CEs make a difference? They have been tasked and trained by the very organisation that had the problem in the first place.  And the problem is that the GDC do not reject anything.

Some of the recent cases suggest that the GDC still do not know what a proper complaint is. The whole list of FTP is awash with material that is either better managed locally and or indeed a simple internal disciplinary matter.

So, if you have not done so, get your £900 out for another year of outrageous wasteful use of your money. But do so with a good grace. It could be worse. 

Couldn’t it?

Is it me or have we become so numb and subservient that we just accept it as a nuisance nowadays?

NHS Pilots – self funded by dentists!!

Meanwhile, perhaps all is well with new NHS Pilots. We all know there is new money, and we all know that the DH wants to get bodies through the doors, never mind whether anyone does any dentistry.  But the idea of a Care Pathway appears to be well received on its own merits.

But there appears to be strange anomaly that the pilot practice may face up to 10% - YES TEN PERCENT – clawback – which if your profit is running at 20% reflects HALF THE PRACTICE PROFIT -  which for most Pilot Principals suggests a cold winter looms.

Good on the BDA for highlighting this matter, on stage at the Local Dental Committees Officials Day , with the DH Head of Finance and the “fabulous” Dr Sara Hurley [You did see the Good Morning interview spat between our CDO for NHS England and Dr Tony Kilcoyne didn’t you?] sitting along side as Dr Henry laid into them in no undertain terms.

Indemnity in Crisis?

Maybe all is well with our support network, the Medical Indemnity Organisations. You know – Dental Protection, DDU, MDDUS and the newer companies such as Taylor Defence Services.

Well, who knows?  There are stories of some colleagues finding their cover withdrawn in a discretionary manner halfway through a case.  There are many stories of colleagues finding their annual cover suddenly approaching 5 figures and beyond.  There is still no clear method for subscription calculation although one hears mutterings about the legendary ‘grid’.  A sort of Spot the Ball for Indemnity subscriptions!

Whatever the truth, there is a financial crisis in Indemnity, driven by a combination of commercially proactive lawyers and an overzealous GDC. So much so that there is a one day crisis conference being held in January

After many discussions about rising Indemnity and concerns some colleagues have been left with no cover or representation etc., A 1-day Seminar is being organised by Dental Practice at the Hilton Metropole, Birmingham NEC, on Friday 27th January 2017 from 08.30 to 17.30pm.

Concerns are being expressed across the dental sector about the delivery of Professional Indemnity cover and what is and is not included in the various offerings from the MDO’s. As a result, and in conjunction with many key decision makers, it has been decided to hold this 1-day seminar to look at the current situation, with much time for Q&As.

Places will be limited and are expected to be in high demand so, to avoid being disappointed, contact Rodney Pitt, Editor and Conference Organiser at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Well that all makes for an energetic start to 2017.

It must be time for another letter to educate the public again, if the recernt rubbish written  by Hunter Davies in the Times is anything to go by!

I suggest we all turn to our loved ones and count our blessings.  In the year that we have lost Leonard Cohen, AA Gill and Greg Lake, we will not be short of words and music.

Put your practice to bed, and come back refreshed after a nod to the year, raring to go – unless of course you rely on Southern Railway in which case, the very best of luck!

If Christmas is your celebration, may yours be peaceful and joyful. That much we can be assured of

http://campbellacademy.co.uk/blog/failed-hurdle/
Dr Colin Campbell – the GDC have failed at their first hurdle

https://www.gdpuk.com/news/latest-news/2403-henrik-gives-update-on-prototypes
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, Chair, BDA General Dental Practice Committee, has posted an update about the prototype contracts on the BDA website

Also here for BDA members
https://bdaconnect.bda.org/dental-contract-reform-an-update-on-prototypes/

http://www.content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB22526  for NHS report of Motivation

Dental Working Hours, 2014/15 and 2015/16 Motivation Analysis, Experimental Statistics

Advertising opportunities are now available on GDPUK in 2017.

Please get in touch to be sent our latest media pack and we will be glad to send all the information over. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

• Exposure on the site or daily digest for a full month or as long as you want. Pricing is on a per month basis. This generates a large number of impressions of your message.
• Opportunity to post PR or blogs onto the site to accompany your campaign, these are then shared with our thousands of followers on social media. So as well as reaching our community audience, you are reaching another audience through social media.
• By posting content and information to our blog pages, you can be seen as an opinion leader in your sector.
• Our ad serving software can display more than one ad at a time, instead of having all your impressions on one message, you can split the exposure between as many messages as you want. This works well for a dental business that has a number of product or service offerings eg. a business that does dental repairs and sells equipment, can advertise both services at once. This is a fabulous way to test what works and experiment with which ads gain the best response.
• Click throughs can be to a dedicated landing page on our website, where you can collect data or provide further information to the audience.
• Advert can appear on our front page and our news / blog pages, which get viewed thousands of times in a month.

How can you use GDPUK to reach your target audience?

• Promote a course that is looking for dentists to attend.
• Launch a new product or service to the dental sector.
• Special Offers.
• Make dentists aware of a service your company offers.
• Brand Awareness.
• Surveys. We can host surveys on our site.
• Promote attendance at a trade show.

To be sent a copy of our latest media pack, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

I have mentioned Casey Neistat and his interesting YouTube channel in the past. A year on, he has 5,902,950 subscribers which is a rather impressive following! Last week he announced that he would be ending the daily vlogs that documented his life and will now be focusing on a new project. This was obviously big news and dominated social media for a few hours.

Casey has always been consistent in always striving forward and taking on new projects. He often talked on his blogs about being fiercely ambitious.

On the back of his “retirement” from YouTube, on Monday it was announced that CNN would be buying the social media platform owned by Neistat called Beme and the 11 person team that run the app for a reported $25 million. But the really intriguing part is that CNN plan to shut down the app and allow Casey to create a new project to attract his 6 million followers to this new media company. Neistat will have full creative control, that lets the audience share “timely and topical videos” and start conversations around current events.

“Casey has tapped into nearly six million really powerful viewers, most of which do not tune into CNN,” Andrew Morse, global head of CNN Digital, told NYT. “To build this audience authentically, we believe we need to build something new.”

Casey will attempt to build engagement around news topics.

“It’s going to be very different from Beme and bigger than a single product,” Neistat told The Verge in a phone interview.

“There is a tremendous distrust between the audience that watches my content online and the information that is put out by traditional media. Our broad ambition is to figure out a way with tech and media to bridge the gigantic divide.”

Along with his own video projects, Neistat wants to find more opportunities to help his audience learn more about the world and how they can help make it a better place. He's already done this to some extent in the past, such as in 2013 when he used the $25,000 budget from 20th Century Fox to help with typhoon relief in the Philippines. He also wants to come up with a way to help the next generation of content creators use technology and find their voice.

So why am I writing a blog on this?

Younger generations do not believe everything in the mainstream media as past generations certainly did and so what intrigues me about this latest move from Casey is how will he present news / stories in a way that engages people and gets them interacting with the latest news from around the world.

Video is proving a very popular medium, as the number of subscribers to Casey’s vlogs demonstrate but I certainly can’t wait to see how he will take the opportunity of working in a big mainstream media organisation and put his unique spin and perspective on things. As a major cable TV news channel, CNN is likely trying to formulate content in a way that speaks to younger, more cynical audiences and based on his previous form of effortlessly appealing to his viewers, Neistat seems the perfect man to reach the younger audience.

I am looking forward to seeing how this devolops and if Casey can truly produce something different that influences and engages his followers.

Below I have included one of his famous YouTube productions. Looks like fun to me :)

His Youtube channel can be found here.

Welcome to our latest blog. Below are 5 reasons that we believe make GDPUK a unique place to market your business and reach your target audience of dentists. G.D.P.U.K.

G = Growing

Established in 1997, GDPUK continues to grow

• 20 years of hosting dental discussion chat and opinion

• The home of dental opinion in the UK

• Just under 10,000 members, who are all part of the profession

• Since beginning of 2014, we have had 3500 new members, the site is constantly growing.

• Approx 1,000 different people contribute to our forum discussions in a calendar year.

• In 2016, we are averaging over 4,000 unique visitors a month to the site.

GDPUK is the home of dental opinion and information.

• The site is proud that it gives a medium for dentists to discuss dentistry in the UK and give their opinion of what matters to them.

• The site can be controversial but we see that as a good thing. We exist because the content in our news, blogs and forum pages is interesting to read. We continue to attract an audience.

• This tradition continued at our conference in November 2016 and our 20th anniversary celebrations in 2017.

Publisher of Daily Dental News and Blogs

• Large audience follow our news and blogs

• GDPUK has a news editor, plus a number of paid content writers

• News stories receive thousands of readers a week

• A range of blogs are published weekly, full of opinion, humour and insight.

• Our news is published instantly, so the site carries the latest stories, no monthly deadlines, no print nor post delays….

• @DentistGoneBadd our comedy blogger attracts around 5,000 readers per week, 100,000 in the last twelve months.

Reach your target audience

• GDPUK offers unique advertising spaces to get in front of your target audience

• Dentists are reading our site every day of the week.

• The site is like a dental exhibition every day!

• Feature on our daily digest email, which gets sent 3 times a day, every day

• Ask us about what we can offer for a 12 month marketing campaign.

K = Kinship

Become Part of the GDPUK Family

• We are a small, close knit group and business at GDPUK

• Work with us and we can help any problems or issues and come back to you instantly

• We can provide full accountability on everything and we are always available to speak or help.

• GDPUK loves to build close relationships, with our users, colleagues and also our customers who help to keep the site running.

For more information about GDPUK and how we can help to market your business, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Thanks for reading.

Uber drivers scored a massive victory against their bosses last week, by challenging the company’s assertion that they are self-employed. However, the London Central Employment Tribunal were not determining whether Uber drivers were employees or self-employed, but rather whether they were somewhere in the middle; were they in fact “workers” for employment law purposes. And the answer was yes.

Uber now faces mass litigation as drivers are being advised to issue claims.  Deliveroo staff are jumping on the band wagon too; they are taking legal steps to unionise and gain worker status. And these are not the only companies that are likely to have claims issued against them. With an ever expanding GIG economy the Uber case is of huge importance.

It also highlights the importance of categorising staff correctly from the outset of any contractual relationship and ensuring contracts are not drafted by lawyers to merely try to avoid claims but are drafted to reflect the reality of the situation.

The distinction between employees, workers and the self-employed is particularly relevant within dentistry. Dentists engaged as associates have traditionally been labelled self-employed, however, the contractual reality is often very different. Practices must now review their contracts and ask themselves what it is they want to achieve from their working relationships. As a practice owner, if you do not want to be liable for employment rights such as sick or holiday pay, now is the time to act. Some simple changes in the way you run your business will make all the difference.  As for associates, it is now worth considering your status to see whether you have been missing out on some of the paid benefits that come from being a worker.

Remember; simply because an associate has signed a ‘self-employed’ contract without complaint for a number of years, does not prevent future claims being issued against your practice.  

This decision is also likely to have a massive impact on the dental community and in particular the classification of associates, especially with the rise of corporates. Here we look at why.  

Decision

On 28^th October 2016 the London Central Employment Tribunal sent out its long awaited judgment in the case of Aslam & ors v (1) Uber BV (2) Uber London Limited and (3) Uber Britannia Limited.  The Tribunal held that Uber drivers should be considered workers, as opposed to self-employed contractors.

Uber has already confirmed its intentions to appeal the decision, and the case is expected to go all the way to the Supreme Court given the huge ramifications of the decision, and the implications on a number of business models based on a similar ethos to Uber.

Legal Definition of Worker

Firstly, it should be noted that the Uber drivers were only seeking to establish themselves as workers; not employees. As such we are only considering this category here. For detailed guidance on employment status you can read our October 2016 blog here.

Workers lie in between employees and self-employed contractors, gaining some rights afford to employees but not all of them. This table steps out the rights of each.

To determine worker status, the Tribunal will ask:

• Personal service: Did the individual undertake under the contract to personally perform work or services?
• Business undertaking: Was the status of the ‘employer’ under the contract that of a customer of a business undertaking carried on by the individual?
• Mutuality of obligation: was there mutuality of obligation between the individual and the ‘employer’?

The courts have made it clear that ‘the question in every case is…what was the true agreement between the parties.’ It is therefore the reality of the situation that is analysed in line with the above three questions, not just the contractual documents.

Key Findings

• Personal Service. It was not disputed that the drivers undertook to do the work personally. In any event the Tribunal found that the essential bargain between the parties was that, for a reward, the driver makes himself available to carry passengers of Uber to their destinations.

How is this relevant to dentists?

This is similar to a contract between associate and dental practice, in that the associate must make himself available at agreed times, and for a fee, to treat the patients of the practice.

• Business Undertaking. Uber argued that it was not in business as a supplier of transportation services. It was merely a platform which connected passengers to drivers. Uber claimed to be a a customer of the drivers, as drivers paid a fee to use the platform. However, the Tribunal disagreed. It found that Uber offers a range of services, UberX, UberXL, UberEXEC, UberTAXI and UberWAV. Whereas the drivers only offer one of the services. Crucially, Uber marketed itself as offering a range of transport services, not as a platform service. This was for its benefit; not the benefit of the individual drivers. The Tribunal therefore held that Uber is a transportation service and not a customer of the drivers. Interestingly this is a similar argument Uber put forward before the North California District Court, namely that it was a technology company and not a transportation services. This argument was resoundingly rejected by that court too.

How is this relevant to dentists?

Dental practices are not a conduit by which patients access their dentists. Instead they market themselves as the end supplier of a range of services, such as hygienists and therapists or specialists and dentists with specialist interests, whereas not all staff will be providing those services.

• Mutuality of obligation. Once an individual becomes a driver, they have access to the App, which sends passenger requests to available drivers. A driver is not required to turn the App on but when they do there are certain requirements that the driver must adhere to, including the number of cancellations they can make, the number of fares they reject when online and in terms of their ratings. The Tribunal found this meant the drivers were required to work for Uber when online and that Uber had an element of control over the work the drivers carried out.

How is this relevant to dentists?

Dental practices must have associates in place to undertake dental treatment on the patients booked into the surgery. As such the practice requires the dentist to be available during surgery opening hours. This is even more applicable in relation to practices with NHS contracts, where the practice will require associates to complete a minimum number UDAs per annum. Associates also must comply with the practices policies and procedures.

• Reality of the relationship. The contract and agreements between Uber and the Drivers referred to Uber providing platform services to connect customers with drivers. Of this the Tribunal said ‘the notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small business linked by a common ‘platform’ is to our minds faintly ridiculous…Ms Bertram spoke of Uber assisting drivers to ‘grow’ their businesses, but no driver is in a position to do anything of the kind, unless growing his business simply means spending more hours at the wheel. The Tribunal went on to state how Uber do not supply leads for drivers, as drivers are not free to negotiate a deal with the customer.

How is this relevant to dentists?

Often Dental Practices set the rates for the dental treatment offered and dentists are not free to negotiate those prices.  Also dental practices will often promote the services they offer as a whole and the associate is therefore not free to grow their own business. However, if an associate has their own client list, sets their own hours and/or is able to send a locum in their stead without restrictions, then the reality of the relationship is something different.

We feel that the tide is turning against the broad brush approach to defining ‘self-employment’ and the Tribunals and HMRC will be considering how to crack down on employers seeking to avoid their duties. In a nut shell, in order to protect your practice from costly litigation, make sure your contracts reflect the true relationship of the parties and if you are not sure, then seek advice from an expert.

Laura Pearce, Senior Solicitor

Ask us, How we can help you?

There has been a recurring theme this week (other than the US Presidential Election) and that is clients or prospects asking how we can help them in 2017?

We see GDPUK as an integral part of a dental companies opportunity to market themselves to dentists in the UK. We believe we have a large, active and engaged audience on the site, which we are very proud of. This is important because dental professionals in the UK are using social media more than ever and GDPUK is at the centre of that.

So we have put together a short list of the ways in which we can help our clients engage with potential customers.

1. Banner Ads - We offer a range of banner ads on the site and our daily digest emails. Further info can be found in our media pack and by getting in This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

2. 12 month packages of advertising. We have a number of deals with clients that run for 12 months, which offer the client excellent exposure, good value and builds a great working relationship between GDPUK and the client.

3. Product / Service Launches - We can help launch a new product into the market, with blogs, news articles and banner ads.

4. Special Offers - Entice new or old customers with a special offer / or sample offer

5. Case Studies - We can publish case studies for you of products that are working for patients in dental practices. A case study can be a great way of demonstrating how your product works and how it will help the dentist improve his or her skills.

6. Forum Reviews / Tests - Put your product to the test, use members of the GDPUK forum to test your product and receive honest reviews that can be shared on the forum and published as a blog post.

7. Surveys - Run a survey, which can be hosted by our site or your site. Use it to do product research etc

8. Social Media Competitions - Combining promotion on GDPUK and other social media channels, we can run a competition that helps collect data and potential new users of your product.

9. Promotion of Courses / Events - There are a large number of events, meetings, courses that are scheduled in the UK dental calendar on an annual basis, we can help with promotion and even the sale of the tickets.

10. 2017 Conference. Next year we are pleased to be hosting an event to celebrate our 20th year of a space for dentists in the UK to talk and share opinion. This milestone, will be marked with conference towards the end of next year. Exhibition and sponsorship opportunities will be available.

If you would like to try any other marketing ideas on our site, we are always interested in new methods and always looking to learn. Look forward to hearing from you soon, helping your business thrive in 2017.

Thanks for reading.

The mix of education, personal stories and music made for an incredibly diverse and interesting day.

Chris Tavares remarked;

Mike Powell via the GDPUK forum stated:-

Tony Jacobs, MD of GDPUK was really pleased with the outcome of the day:-

Previously on this very blog, I have written about the power of storytelling but how we use stories and imagery are still incredibly important when we get up in front of an audience.

If you want people to remember what you say, tell a story. Paint a big visual picture. Don’t just say you deliver great customer service, find a surprising or funny story about how you delivered amazing customer service. Link it to our emotions.

This evening is the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, which is a 25 hour fast that commences at sunset. The central themes of the day are atonement and repentance. At certain points of the service (both tonight and tomorrow) there will be a sermon from the Rabbi or Minister of the Synagogue. At every synagogue around the world there will be similar themes. From experience of some bad sermons over the years, those that keep the attention of the audience will involve a number of stories that can be linked together to form an overall message that the speaker wants to get over to their audience or congregation. If parts of the biblical texts or transcripts are just read out then people will just switch off. Stories will keep the hungry audience, entertained and engaged!

Groups don’t need more facts. We definitely need more stories – especially good ones.

So with 4 weeks to go to the GDPUK Conference, I want to remind you that all our speakers on the day will have excellent stories to tell, that we believe will keep you engaged and interested. The conference promises to be slightly different to a normal day at a dental conference. Why not come along and join us. We look forward to seeing you on the 4th of November. There will be plenty of chance on the day....for us all to share our stories.

Thanks for reading :)

Speaker lineup - www.gdpuk.com/conference/speakers

Conference and ticket information - www.gdpuk.com/conference/overview

Quote taken from this link https://www.flickr.com/photos/coolinsights/16461066958

The question of employment status regularly crops up amongst the dental community. Most consider associates to be self-employed because that is the industry norm and how HMRC view associates. However, that may not always be the case.

It is a common misconception that because a contract states it is ‘self-employed’ that will be the end of the matter. However, from an Employment Tribunal perspective the question is a question of fact; not just what is set out in the documents; meaning your contract may not be worth the paper it’s written on.

Given the vast amount of employment rights that employees have, getting this wrong can be a costly mistake to make.  

In addition to ensuring you get it right from the outset, in a modern society people want more flexibility in how they work; as a result hygienists, technicians and therapist are seeking self-employed opportunities. Being able to offer such roles could make you more appealing as an employer, helping you attract and retain the best possible talent for your business.

In this blog we take a look at the legal test of employment status for the purpose of an Employment Tribunal, the common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

The question of employment status is a minefield.  It is therefore not surprising that this issue regularly pops up before Employment Tribunals. There is no hard and fast rule that can be used as the issue is always case sensitive. Judges have tried to give guidance and here we set out the points you should ask when considering the position within your practice. 

It should be noted that the test for employment status for the purposes of employment rights is different to the test that HMRC use. In addition, HMRC allow some professions, such a dentistry, to utilise self-employment status, even if the Tribunals may not agree with this. This article only deals with the question of employment status for the purposes of employment rights.

Types of Employment Status

There are three types of employment status:

1.      Employee:

2.      Worker;

3.      Self-employed.

Employees have the best employment protection, workers have some protection, and those who are self-employed have very little protection. However, those who are self-employed have much more freedom as to how and when they work, compared with employees. As such there are pros and cons with each category, and which is right for you will depend on individual/business circumstances.

You can find out what rights workers and employees have here.

Identifying Status

When looking at whether the individual is an employee, Tribunals will ask:

1. Must the person personally provide the service or can they send a substitute?
2. Is the company obliged to provide work and is the person obliged to accept it?
3. How much control does the company have over the individual?
4. Who has the risk in relation to the business?
5. Who provides and maintains the tools?
6. What degree of management does the individual have in the business?
7. Does the individual profit from performance?
8. How is the individual paid?
9. Does the individual receive holiday and sick pay?

This is not an exhaustive list and the Tribunal does not approach it as a tick box exercise. They consider all the facts and then determine the point. This is why following the industry norm may not always be the best approach, especially with the introduction of corporates and chains.

For worker status there are just three questions:

1. Must the person personally provide the service or can they send a substitute?
2. Is the company obliged to provide work and is the person obliged to accept it?
3. Was the status of the "employer" under the contract that of a customer? 

There is no definition of a self-employed person. They are simply anyone who doesn’t fit into either of the above two categories.

In Issue 12 of JFH Law's Dental Bulletin we highlighted the case of the Hospital Medical Group Limited v Westwood [2012] EWCA Civ 1005 in which the Court of Appeal held that a GP working as a self-employed independent contractor for a private clinic was a worker, even though they had two other positions elsewhere. In our opinion, this case has a lot of similarities to dentists and highlights the dangers of getting it wrong.

Avoiding the Pitfalls

First and foremost make sure the contract reflects the true position of the relationship between the practice and the individual. If you try to avoid the question and/or use pro-forma contracts, the Tribunal will see through this and will scrutinise the matter in detail, potentially leaving you with a hefty legal bill and a payment of compensation to make. Many pro-forma associate contracts try to deal with all eventualities and refer to both NHs and private work. Remember one size does not fit all.

And vice versa; if you have spent money on a contract to reflect a self-employment relationship, make sure what is said in the contract is actually being carried out. If your contract states the individual can send a substitute then you must allow this. Whether this right should be unfettered is likely to depend on how the clause is worded. Given your duties as a dental practice, you will need some assurances as to who the substitute is. If you can avoid a clause that allows you to vet any locums but states a minimum standard of substitute this will give you less control and will make the contract less likely to be deemed an employment one.

As a dental practice you will no doubt have a number of policies and procedures in place for running your business. Make sure you distinguish the ones that apply to employees (mostly likely all of them) and the ones that apply to those who are workers or self-employed. This may mean having a separate set of documents for those who are self-employed in certain areas, such as conduct or performance. However, overall the cost of amending policies compared to the cost of litigation will be worth it.  

If you want advice on the status of anyone in your workforce or need assistance with re-drafting contracts or documents, please contact Laura Pearce on 0207 388 1658 or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Image by Caitlin Childs under CC licence.