Newby Dental

Putting patients first and giving everyone a reason to smile.

My wife, dentist Emma Skipper and I had been working in a dental practice for several years when we finally made the decision to move on and go it alone. Our dream was to create our own high-end, modern dental practice near Scarborough.

Finding a building large enough for the six-surgery practice we wanted to build was a challenge, but eventually we found a period detached cottage in the village of Newby. It was a good-sized residential three- to four- bed property with a separate one-bedroom flat above the garage and old stables. Obtaining planning permission to convert the property into a dental practice was not straightforward and took 12 months to complete but once we gained approval we were able to complete on the property and start work straight away.

THE BUILD
The day after we got the keys we began the process of gutting the interior. We knocked through from the main building to the flat tocreate a good-sized staff room, complete with showers, changing rooms and an open-plan eating area. Beneath the flat the old stables and garage were demolished and rebuilt as two new ground floor surgeries.

We started the build on 1 February 2020, which unfortunately for everyone turned out to be just a few weeks before the first national lockdown. It was a horrendous time for us as we had the whole building stripped back to bare brick and suddenly, we couldn’t get any supplies, materials or labour and naturally this brought unforeseen issues and delays. Thomas Stones from Henry Schein Dental was the key person involved in the planning, building and furnishing of the practice from the outset. However, as we went into lockdown there were changes in his team and naturally all site visits were cancelled. At that point, Kai Turck, one of their equipment sales specialists, stepped in and guided us through the plans and dealt with any problems or queries so we could continue with the project to some extent, until lockdown restrictions eased.

Cattani UK was also involved in the project from the start. The specialist dental manufacturer was responsible for the planning and testing of all the pipework and suction systems for the surgeries.

THE CHALLENGES
Using my experience from running my own property company, I took on the
role of project manager for the refurbishment of the practice, which often involved working 14-hour days, seven days a week. The initial building phase took around eight months to complete, which was actually quite an achievement considering the scale of the project and amount of work involved.

Because of legal restrictions on the number of people who could meet indoors and social distancing rules, hands-on staff training on the new equipment, such as our Belmont Compass chairs, had to initially be put on hold.

Fortunately, now restrictions have been lifted, Tom has ensured that all necessary training is now going ahead. The only problem I did not foresee was trying to get hold of plaster of all things, to complete the interiors and I did wonder if this might be the one reason that we wouldn’t be able to open on time.

THE RESULT
However, the practice did open as planned on 16 November 2020 and all the hard work involved in the build has been absolutely worth it in the end.

The practice has air conditioning throughout all the clinical areas and underfloor heating with temperature controls that can be adjusted to suit each individual surgery. All door access is controlled by keypads rather than keys, and the surgery keypads are programmed to control the power in that particular surgery zone. When the staff leave at night and lock the door it turns the power off to the entire room, helping to save greatly on energy costs and improving our environmental credentials.

The building’s interior is fully automated with sensors to control the lighting so there are no light switches to turn on and off. All the external lighting and illuminated signage comes on automatically at dusk and switches off again later in the evening. We are also wired for battery backup so if there is a power cut we can continue to work in the downstairs surgeries.

Our new practice management system uses Exact dental software from Software of Excellence, which is part of Henry Schein, so dealing with one group made sense for us.

All our routine administrative tasks are now automated, which not only saves on paper and is far better for the environment, but significantly saves on administrative time and improves efficiency.

Patient reaction to the new practice has been extremely positive. They really love the new environment and are very impressed. We have five of the six surgeries completed, a fully compliant decontamination room and a new conference room for onsite staff training and to host dental events.

Tom and the Henry Schein Dental team have been instrumental in getting the practice to the high standard of finish that we wanted. They have a vast amount of knowledge and experience of the whole dental industry and if we ever had any
issues they were able to advise and sort out any problems on our behalf. Tom and his engineers are always on call and they were there to support us especially when we first opened and needed them the most.

THE FUTURE
Going forward we are looking to complete the sixth surgery and have just ordered an intraoral scanner and a CT scanner to go into the dedicated lead-lined room we have built ready for this. Once these are fully installed, we’ll be able to provide all services in house, resulting in a better level of care for all our patients.

We are very keen to embrace digital technology throughout the practice
and plan to continually invest to upgrade our equipment and skills as the technology develops. Digital dentistry is the way forward.