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Printer friendly versionDear Patient,

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2010. Where has the time gone since the year 2000? Well at least we survived the millennium bug and are still here to look after you all. A lot of things can happen in ten years and this certainly applies to The Smile Centre. In the last decade the practice has grown from Mark pretty much running things single-handed to the current position of four dentists, two hygienists and a visiting oral surgeon. We think we have probably reached a limit now, mainly because there is little room available left for expansion within the existing building.

2009 was another year, as with most years, with a lot going on at The Smile Centre. Whilst we didn’t have too many staff changes this year, Karen (one of our hygienists) and Dulcina (our practice manager) have moved on to pastures new. We would like to welcome Bethany who replaced Karen and started at the practice in September. Hopefully many of you will benefit from her professional expertise over the coming months and years. At the time of writing this we are in the process of interviewing for a new practice manager (PM). Hopefully the new PM will be in a position to start in the New Year. With increasing red tape requirements from the NHS, it really is a full time job looking after the day to day running of the practice and the PM’s role is critical.

As you may be aware, here at The Smile Centre, we are very keen on helping you to prevent dental disease. To aid in this Niki, one of our dentists, is an active member in the local Oral Health Promotion Network. One of the Network’s responsibilities is to increase patient awareness in mouth cancer. Tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption in conjunction with a poor diet and any previous cancers could place you at a higher risk of developing oral cancer. Be assured though, here at The Smile Centre we automatically screen you for oral cancer when you have a routine dental examination.

Those of you who regularly read our newsletters will have seen that we have been setting up of our Local Sterilisation Unit (LSU). These units will be the standard required for the sterilisation of instruments in all dental practices within the next couple of years. We decided to undertake best practice before the deadline, to ensure our patients continue to receive the best quality care.

Now on to 2010, this looks like being a year of potential change for the profession yet again – with another new NHS contract planned to start in April! We still only have basic details on this and don’t know how it will affect you, but hope that most of the changes will be behind the scenes. As one of the leading practices in Nottingham, delivering services not offered at other centres, we hope we will be able to secure a contract, so we can continue to offer NHS care to our patients. Our current contract expires at the end of March - so watch this space!



We look forward to seeing you soon!