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Printer friendly versionDear Patient,

Hello Everyone,
Welcome to the first Newsletter of 2011 which Mark wrote over the Christmas break. Yet again there seem to be a lot of new faces at the practice. Amanda our receptionist, and more lately our decontamination operative, left to have a baby and another receptionist Karen, previously Mark's nurse also left due to pregnancy. Now we don't want you to think there is a pattern here, but Colleen Mark's current nurse and the practice's Head Nurse is also pregnant!! So that's three staff who have been, are on or are going on maternity leave, and as a result we have recruited new staff to help out.

We would therefore like to welcome Hayley, Laura and Jodie to the practice officially, all of whom you will meet on reception when you visit the practice and whom we know will try there hardest to look after you. Meanwhile, Adrian our Practice Manager and a face you have all probably seen around, has been with us for just over a year now and is really getting to grips with life in the practice.

It has been a huge help having Adrian with us as his management background has helped deal with the mountain of legislation, compliance and audit that increasingly seems to be a part of filling teeth these days. In fact dentistry is set for two big administrative changes yet again; the first is a very expensive registration with the Care Quality Commission, a quango that historically looked after nursing homes and whose compliance requirements have taken Adrian and Leigh several weeks to complete. The second change which is likely to happen in 2012 is yet another contract change for dentists!!! The last one introduced in 2006, remains a disaster that deregistered patients without their being informed
and in breach of the Governments own guidelines, cost a fortune to implement and has led to a nationwide reduction in patients being seen on the NHS and a reversal of the excellent preventive work done by the profession in the preceding 20 years. We can only wait with bated breath to see how badly this Government can mess things up with next years' changes.

Now in fairness, they have invited practices to participate in one of three types of pilot studies and there is a chance that being involved may give us the chance to influence the final outcome. As this newsletter is being written the partners are deciding if we should apply for a pilot. If we do, and we are successful, patients shouldn't see any disruption to our normal services.

Just before we sign off we would like to congratulate Bethany, one of our Hygienists who got married on the 24th of December 2010 and will return as "Mrs Lowe" in the New Year.

Well there is a brief update of life at the practice and the profession at large. Remember our website has lots of extra information and as ever we look forward to seeing you probably a little more than you look forward to seeing us!!