DBG celebrates another milestone.

It’s been 25 years since DBG began – and I’ve been lucky enough to have been there right from the very beginning.

The dental buying group, as it was known back then, was the brainchild of Allan Stockwin. Twenty-five years ago, the very idea of a dental buying group was itself an incredibly innovative concept that had absolutely no predecessors – and there were plenty of people who dismissed the whole thing as untenable. There really was nothing like it available, and when you think of how many companies have to continuously compete with each other today, that seems rather fantastic.

In the beginning, a group of us attended several meetings with Allan and really liked the concept. My husband, Geoff Edmiston, and Mel Rosenthal were delighted to become investors and get the ball the ball rolling as it were. From there it wasn’t long before several other forward-thinking professionals got involved as well.

In those days the dental industry was very segregated and each practice was in effect an island – they had absolutely no clout when it came to haggling for discounts on products. Practice owners essentially took what they were given. Whether it was a dental chair or a new toothbrush supplier that was required, if the owner asked for money off they would have been laughed out of the building – so the idea behind DBG was to bring these people together and form a group that gave real buying power to each of its members.

Revolutionary idea

Many of us within the group at this point travelled around the world to places such as America and Hong Kong to take a look at innovative products and materials that hadn’t yet reached British shores. Our next step was to set up a panel of dentists who would try out these innovative products via a thorough tried-and-tested evaluation – this eventually resulted in DBG’s exclusive Tekpro brand, which gave dentists the opportunity to purchase good quality products at affordable prices compared to what most companies were asking for at that time. This kept those products viable for use in the mainstream.

It was very exciting in the early days, as the concept was developed and the number of people involved grew significantly. We held regular meetings, went away on great weekends and were able to meet likeminded peers – it was such a great time for us, sourcing new products and putting them out to test. It was a real mix of business and pleasure. While the others were out sourcing new products, I personally became increasingly involved in practice management and the marketing side of things. I found this very interesting and it led to my continued involvement in marketing, which I still do today.

In the States we came across the computerised local anaesthesia device, which is available in the UK now, but wasn’t back then. In fact, at the time we couldn’t even get a supplier in England and in the end we had to bring it in from South Africa ­as it was so far ahead of the times, and we sourced many other innovative products in the same way before they went mainstream.

Making an impact

Our aim was to make practice life easier and provide a complete business service – and we succeeded. As DBG grew, the company really put a cat among the pigeons in the non-practicing side of the dental world. These companies had had it their own way up until then – they could set their own prices and there was nothing a small surgery could do about it.

But once practices were backed with the buying power of hundreds and thousands of their members, it really shook things up in terms of the purchasing of equipment and services. There was clearly a real niche market here, and the whole initiative worked exceptionally well. The biggest benefit was that we helped a lot of practices to get a decent price for stock without them having to bulk buy to make those savings. This was a fantastic selling point for DBG: the fact that practices didn’t need to stockpile to save money.

DBG today

So that’s how it started, and as DBG grew it sidetracked into different areas, from engineering and materials and then on to on-site, online and in-practice training, and as we attracted more and more members that gave us the facility to spread our wings further.

The company continues to uphold its reputation of helping and supporting practices as well as its motto: ‘complete dental solutions’; and it has plenty of satisfied members who are more than willing to testify to this success. For example, when speaking about DBG engineers Laura Hancock, Practice Manager at The Dental Practice in Liverpool, says “The service is very efficient and our equipment is always repaired without causing any disturbance or problems to staff or patients”.

DBG also continues to evolve and devise new ways in which it can support members. For example, the Healthcare Professionals Network (HPN) is a recently introduced membership scheme that is solely for DCPs – it offers an online members forum for DCPs, community support and advice as well as online access to core CPD and discounts on indemnity insurance. Deanna Dowley, Practice Manager at Grosvenor Dental Practice in Stoke, beta-tested the HPN website. She says the HPN makes life easier for DCPs, and that she’s, “looking forward to organising everything electronically in one place – it will definitely take the strain off a bit”.

DBG is now the UK’s largest outsourced healthcare provider, and will continue offer innovative healthcare solutions in years to come.

For more information call DBG on 01606 861 950,

Or visit www.thedbg.co.uk