Does offshoring provide the key to dental business efficiency?

One of the most-critical issues currently facing the dental sector is workforce capacity as the NHS faces unprecedented pressure and the private sector continues expanding rapidly to meet unmet patient demand.​

With the Government revealing plans to increase access to NHS dental services, including preventative care, in its 10-Year Health Plan, staff vacancy rates are reaching worrying levels across most regions. And appointment availability varies dramatically by geography.

With National Insurance increases coming in, and additional employment rights, there will be an impact on recruitment at all levels, particularly nursing and receptionist roles, where salaries will likely increase significantly

Currently there are 24,543 NHS dentists active in England, and this number is increasing by just 1.4% year on year, despite the growing demand.

This means there are just 42 dentists per 100,000 head of population.

Regional disparities further compound the problem, with the East of England having just 24.3 dentists per 100,000 people, London having 27.6, and the North West coming in at just under 28.

The number of clinical staff, however, is significantly higher, at an average of 86.8 per 100,000 people.

And this is fueling a government policy shift where clinical staff such as hygienists and nurses are being encouraged to take on additional responsibilities in order to free up qualified dentists to undertake more-advanced tasks.

The urgency is also switching attention to overseas recruitment and is driving a new trend of ‘offshoring’ administrative tasks to achieve back-office efficiencies.

Jack Rhodes, chief executive of dental recruitment specialist, MedMatch, and workforce and supply chain management firm, Ember, said: “We are working in a sector which has been dealing with clinical shortages for a long time.

“With National Insurance increases coming in, and additional employment rights, there will be an impact on recruitment at all levels, particularly nursing and receptionist roles, where salaries will likely increase significantly.

Dentists tend to be more entrepreneurial than many other healthcare professionals and are willing to take advantage of the cost savings technology and offshoring can bring them

“For smaller practices, in particular, this will have a big impact on their profit margins.

“But some roles do not need to be done in person, and that is where technology is coming to the fore and where the greatest savings can be made.”
Digital solutions transforming practice efficiency include cloud practice management, AI diagnostic tools, and teledentistry.

For cloud practice management alone, the UK market is expected to expand from £33.4m in 2022 to a projected £78.8m by 2030.

These solutions streamline patient communications and appointment management and reduce the administrative burden.

Rhodes said: “Dentists tend to be more entrepreneurial than many other healthcare professionals and are willing to take advantage of the cost savings technology and offshoring can bring them.

“Since COVID there has been a greater shift towards asking whether traditional staffing roles need to be done in person and done from the UK.

“A growing number of practices now have their receptions offshore, for example.

Suddenly the UK has access to this huge additional workforce, enabling practices to upskill their existing staff while reducing back-office costs considerably

“They do not have to employ three people, each on £28,000 a year, but can instead offshore this task and this brings cost efficiencies that are too great to ignore.”

With administration functions historically outsourced to India, which often led to concerns over quality, there is now much more choice, with outsourcing now routinely penetrating into other mainly-Asian countries including China, Singapore, and The Phillippines.

“Suddenly the UK has access to this huge additional workforce, enabling practices to upskill their existing staff while reducing back-office costs considerably,” said Rhodes.

“Together with AI and teledentistry, technology and automation have the potential to reduce administrative burden by up to 70%.”