
Following Labour’s landslide victory, we hear from the dental technology community about what the new government means for dental labs.
John Dalby, lab owner
I must be on a different planet, but I believe, although Labour would not bring wholesale/direct changes for our profession/trade, things will improve on the demand side as they promised to end dental deserts.
Anything that drives up demand for our services can only be a good outcome if we can successfully manage to invest in our technology and skills.
If our prices are correct for the new anticipated demand, decent margins can be made with further consideration for staff training and retention, and renumeration could finally be an attainable reality for us technicians.
Craig Mark Broughton, clinical dental technician (CDT) and lab owner
Will Labour sort out the challenges facing labs? Potentially. However, I don’t think that’s the only issue.
If you went into any school or college and asked the students, ‘What is a dental technician?’, you’ll get a lot of vacant looks, probably even from the teachers.
I think we need to be banging on the doors of schools and colleges, attending career fairs and doing lectures etc to raise awareness of the profession.
Sadly, I dare say there’ll be few of us that would do that.
John Ridley, lab owner
In my opinion, I don’t think they’ll do a great deal as they probably don’t even know we as a sector exist.
Dental technicians are a dying breed here in the North East of England, with no training for hundreds of miles; recruiting apprentices is near on impossible. I can’t see this or any government addressing this situation.
I’m in my mid-fifties and know at least 10 technicians (sole traders/lab owners) who are nearer to retirement then me, and within five to 10 years they will no longer be working, and labs may be closed. This does not include technicians of this age working in labs. There’s a massive shortage of technicians up here and the situation is only going to get worse.
Broken system
This government plans to create 100,000 extra dental appointments – how?
The practice I rent my premises off have being trying for 18 months to recruit an NHS dentist with no avail. One of my other practices went solely private, and another is talking about it.
What is likely to happen is the government will throw a pot full of money at it and line dentists’ pockets, none of which will filter down.
The system is completely broken and needs a complete and utter shake up.
From my point of view, I can only hope with the government banging on about growth that they don’t raise any business taxes, ie corporation tax. This stifles growth as businesses can’t invest, hindering the smaller labs from keeping up with new technology.
Rob Kenyon, dental technician
Honestly, I think they have bigger things to sort out.
I’m actually concerned with regards to NHS dentistry after spending all my time and effort transitioning from working for predominantly NHS dentistry to becoming a private CDT. The same can also be said for dentists.
The Labour Party destroyed NHS dentistry overnight back in 2006. The last thing I want them to do is to reverse it now – I’m getting too old. If I have to reverse then it will just about finish me off.
Malcolm Hills, dental technician
Within the industry, two of the main bodies that impact the dental industry are the General Dental Council (GDC) and the MHRA.
The GDC could have a positive impact on labs if its scope was amended so that it policed the many unqualified persons operating dubious businesses outside of its current remit.
The MHRA are only interested in becoming the world’s largest and most important pharmaceutical regulator; they contribute little to the dental industry, aside from creating a complex maze of red tape and collecting rapidly-increasing product registration fees.
Is a Labour government going to change any of this? In a word, no.
Run into the ground
Outside of the industry, Labour will be busy taking us deeper into the idealistic dream of green energy, deeper into our ongoing economic war with Russia and China (which we will lose) and deeper into national debt (we have a debt-based economy, so this is sadly inevitable).
The impact of each of these will be to raise running costs, squeeze profits, and hurt labs on the bottom line, as they will for every other business – except for banking, of course.
Having said that, this outcome is no different to the impact a continuing Conservative government would have had since the major policies of both parties are ultimately the same.
It’s just that the Labour government may well just run us all into the ground that much faster.
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