Leading the way

Christina Chatfield was one of the first few hygienists in the UK to open a walk-in hygiene practice offering various levels of prophylaxis and oral health treatments.  A visionary concept which brought many challenges.

When Christina opened the Dental Spa in Brighton she had a target market of 70 dental practices in the area. She started by targeting a few saying: ‘If you refer the hygiene to me, I’ll refer the dental side to you’. She believed these practices would readily refer patients with compromised oral health to her for advanced hygiene services and her appointment book would soon become busy.

It was a sound business model. But as one of the first hygienist-owned practice in the UK, the thinking was based on optimism rather than experience. The referrals she anticipated when she opened her doors in 2007 failed to materialise to the levels needed. Today she is doing the very opposite of what she planned, and is marketing her services directly to patients instead. Many of the people walking through her doors do not want to see a dentist at first, they want what she is promoting, a preventive approach to a clean, healthy mouth or whiter teeth.