Dental plan base

For those people seeking an overview of the financial dynamics of the dental industry in the UK, I recommend Laing and Buisson's Dentistry UK Market Report 2011. Written by someone with a genuine understanding of the market, this is more than a simple cut and paste of other people's research and contains a plethora of useful insights and statistics.

Of particular interest is the increase in demand of dental plans by 80 per cent in the period 2004-2009 inclusive, as measured by the number of subscribers. However, another statistic that featured quite heavily in some of the headlines surrounding the release of the report concerned the close to three per cent reduction in overall patients registered on dental plans in the last two years of that period.

On the face of it, that, of course, makes sense. We were well in to a new NHS dental contract and in the middle of a major recession, of course more people would look to cancel their direct debits in times of economic hardship, wouldn't they? Well, actually, if the experience of Practice Plan is anything to go by, no.