The cost of covid

Sarah Bradbury considers the impact that covid has had on the dental industry.

We are already starting to hear about the health impacts of long covid, but what about the financial implications? Not only is the world being thrown into a recession and our taxes are being stretched to their limits, but to get though the financial hurdles you have to decipher different types of business loan schemes and hope the government can still find money for continued furloughing, just to run your practice through this uniquely testing time.

The British Dental Association (BDA) has, since last April, been in discussion with the government to try to ensure there is central money for dentists and their businesses but, as is often the case, dentists can get lost in the support given for the NHS and medical fields.

Feeling the pressure
In October 2020 The Dentist reported that Begbies Traynor Red Flag Alert research, which tracks UK businesses in ‘significant’ financial distress, categorised over 1,500 UK dental businesses in this category. This would suggest that around 16 per cent of UK dental practices were experiencing financial difficulty last year. This highlights the increased costs of PPE, social-distancing and cleaning regimes associated with Covid-19 combined with a lower number of patients in attendance. On top of this can be added the restrictions and changes with permitted treatments and patients being nervous about leaving the house due to infection risk. Cumulatively this can cause significant planning and cash flow issues.