How We Did It with Banning Dental Group - Blackfriars, London

Interview with Azad Eyrumlu, Co-Founder and CEO at Banning Dental Group

THE HISTORY

Banning Dental Group was established to provide something we believed was missing in the UK dental market; to become a bridge between NHS and private dental treatment. Having realised there was a chronic shortage of accessible, quality dental care to meet today’s patients’ needs, we wanted to offer a range of high-end treatments in an environment patients would expect to find in a private practice, but at an affordable cost.

The group was set up to provide all major dental specialist treatments in-house, inspired by the values of Scandinavian healthcare. We opened our first practice in Brentford, West London, which was a completely new project for us as well as for the builders and designers involved, and there was a lot to learn. Since then, and as we open our seventh practice with more to come, we are at the stage where we have the perfect practice blueprint in which to replicate our winning formula.

THE PRACTICE

Our new dental centre in London’s Blackfriars is the latest step in Banning Dental Group’s ambitious growth strategy and is designed to be the company’s flagship practice. It was originally an empty commercial shell with just under 3000 square feet of space. Although this was a suitable size for a practice, we decided to add a mezzanine floor, taking it closer to 5000 square feet. This gives us nine treatment rooms, including one for our Skin Clinique centre for face and body aesthetics, as well as a state-of-the-art in-house dental laboratory in association with Zirkonzahn - the first dental laboratory using Zirkonzahn products in a dental practice setting in the UK.

Our enduring aim is to create a very different type of dental practice and move away from small rooms, lack of natural light and closed off spaces. For Blackfriars, instead of using a traditional dental design company, we approached Remarcable Design - interior designers with a specialism in office and retail space - and asked them how they would envision a dental practice to look.

They asked us: “Why do dental practices have to be scary places? Why do they have so much closed space? Why have the reception desk hidden away?” And we said, “Okay, let’s change all that!” We knew this approach would cost several times more than what other new clinic owners would spend. But changing perceptions of UK dentistry, which is our mission, starts with dental professionals changing their views of contemporary dentistry.

THE BUILD

We began negotiations to buy the freehold of the property in autumn 2019 but we first needed to obtain planning permission to install the mezzanine floor. This was a lengthy process, but we finally took ownership in December 2021.

Building the mezzanine floor and staircase was a big project and a big investment for us. We used Landmark Building and Property Services for the build which ran from January to November 2022. Installing an extra floor allowed us to have our dental laboratory and offices upstairs, leaving the clinical services including surgeries, CBCT, decon and treatment co-ordinator rooms fully accessible to patients on the ground floor.

We appointed Stephen Green & Associates as radiation protection advisers to carry out a full assessment of our planned X-ray units and surgery/imaging rooms and to advise on which walls needed to be lead-protected or otherwise.

Our bespoke dental cabinetry came from Modwood. Dentsply Sirona supplied and fitted nine Intego and Sinius dental chairs customised to our exact specifications including intraoral cameras and Banning’s trademark black upholstery and red stitching.

The team from Henry Schein Dental, and our main contact, Christopher Kriek, were an integral part of the project from start to finish. Henry Schein supplied all the equipment and provided on-site training as well as helping to project manage the design and build to ensure everything was fitted and installed correctly.

Chris and his team had previously worked with us on our Leighton Buzzard practice, and understood our ambitions, objectives and ethos. They worked hard to find solutions to fulfil our mission. They always put the right people on the job in hand, and helped other companies involved who had not worked in dental before to gain more experience and understand what needed to be done.

We installed EXACT, the practice management software we use from Software of Excellence, a Henry Schein company, with Microminder providing IT support.

THE RESULT

A key strand in the Banning Group growth model has always been to invest in marketing our practices using our own in-house marketing team. With Blackfriars being our flagship practice our strategy is to focus on its central London location, being conveniently situated within walking distance of Waterloo, Elephant and Castle and Blackfriars mainline stations and several tube stations.

The finished result is a practice with a calm, relaxed and welcoming atmosphere with spacious surgeries and waiting rooms with plenty of natural light. It is a part of our ambitious plans to keep all major dental and specialist services under one roof while ensuring we provide the highest quality treatment to our patients, but at a cost that is affordable to them.

The corner location of the practice gives us additional frontage and ways to attract new patients. At night we open the blinds on the ground-floor with a spotlight on the dental chairs so passers-by can have full view of the state-of-the-art treatment rooms. We believe this also helps to reduce the anxiety that many patients feel about visiting the dentist.

Our practice is open seven days a week from early morning to late evening, offering flexible and accessible care to our clients in a welcoming environment where patients can relax and receive an exceptional service from our highly trained, friendly team. This is why Banning Group’s practices have close to 2000 five-star reviews, showing that patients simply love the Banning experience and everything that comes with it.

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THE PRACTICE

Banning Dental and Skin Clinique Blackfriars

9 St George’s Circus

London SE1 8EH

020 3325 3250

blackfriars@banningdental.co.uk

WEBSITE: banningdental.co.uk

THE ETHOS

We know that private dental care can be expensive and out of reach for many, so when we established our UK dental practices, we were determined to provide quality treatments to all that need it, not just the privileged few. Our aim is to revolutionise the landscape of private dentistry in the UK and our pioneering new practice in Blackfriars is our most ambitious project yet.

Our intention is to provide all major dental specialist treatments in-house and under one roof by GDC-registered professionals. We strongly believe in a multi-disciplinary approach to every treatment, so patients experience complete care from start to finish without outside referral. This reassures our patients that their case has been planned with the input of specialists in all dental fields, whilst giving them complete continuity throughout their treatment journey.

How our patients feel leading up to treatment is an integral part of our patient care ethos. Often, a visit to the dentist is associated with negativity and we wanted to change this through our practice design. We have brought a salon-style atmosphere into what is usually considered a clinical environment. This encourages our patients to feel calm and relaxed, rather than overwhelmed with trepidation.

We have invested heavily in cutting-edge digital dental technology. This allows us to operate an entirely digital workflow for surgery, implant placement, restoration and prosthodontics and provide detailed periodontal surgery and cosmetic improvements during smile makeovers. By being well equipped, we are more streamlined, efficient, and capable of offering outstanding patient care.

Thanks to the size, scale and installations at Banning Blackfriars, we are able to accommodate more patients than ever before. Not only does this mean that appointments are more readily available and waiting times reduced, but we can offer our treatments at prices that simply cannot be beaten in the UK.

COMPANIES AND EQUIPMENT INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT

Architect/Surgery design

Remarcable Design

WEBSITE: remarcable.co.uk

Dental construction and build

Landmark Building and Property Services

WEBSITE: lbpservices.co.uk

Dental equipment

Henry Schein Dental

WEBSITE: hsdequipment.co.uk

Dental chairs

Dentsply Sirona

WEBSITE: dentsplysirona.com/en-gb

Practice management system

Software of Excellence

WEBSITE: softwareofexcellence.com/uk

Website developer

R Media

WEBSITE: r-media.co.uk