In 2020 there were approximately 41,300 dental practitioners in the UK (https://www.statista.com/statistics/318885/numbers-of-dental-practitioners-in-the-uk/) and approximately 12,300 dental practices, so that equates to just over 3.35 dentists per practice. Thus, the average practice does not have a huge number of staff running it. Obviously, each dentist needs a nurse, and some practices may also have a dental hygienist as well. Add in a couple of receptionists, and that adds up to around ten or a dozen people in all.
Unfortunately, all of these people need holidays, and being human, can get ill as well. Of course, employees are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday which on a five-day week works out to 28 days. Dentists themselves may wish to take more time off.
The average list size of patients for a dentist is 1,500 in England and Wales, but quite a number of NHS dentists only work part-time or spend some of their time on private practice, so that a dentist working full time for the NHS has many more patients. A survey carried out for the Doctors and Dentists Review Body found that the average NHS dentist had 2,372 patients on his or her list.
When considering taking time off for holidays, a dentist can simply not take any bookings for the period that he or she is away for things such as check-ups, although there are still cases when a patient needs urgent treatment. Dental practices have different arrangements for nurses, but many try to insist that the nurse takes holidays at the same time as the dentist, which makes a certain amount of sense.
However, there are not just things such as holidays to take into consideration. Dentists and nurses can go sick and have accidents in the same way as anyone else. There are also things such as maternity and paternity leave, compassionate leave, getting stuck overseas when on holiday and/or having to quarantine for ten days on returning. Then there can be other unforeseen circumstances arising such as jury service, which is unavoidable and could go on for weeks and weeks.
If a dentist is only going to be off sick for a couple of days with a cold, then most practices can manage. For things such as check-ups, it is just a question of phoning or emailing all the patients and rebooking their appointments. If there is an emergency, one of the other dentists in the practice may be able to squeeze a patient in. However, with many of these situations, it is not possible to continue without obtaining the services of a locum.
The fact is that many practices are crying out for locums and are prepared to pay whatever is necessary to attract potential candidates. In some roles, the pay that you may have to offer can be as much as £400 a day, and that doesn’t include expenses for travel and accommodation.
This is why many practices turn to us at Approachable Locum Insurance in order to be able to afford to pay a locum without it affecting the income of the practice. We provide locum insurance for dentists at a reasonable cost, and which can be tailored to meet the individual needs of your practice.
Our policy has only a 12-month pre-existing condition clause whereas others have 2 or 3-year clauses. We also payout for a full 52 weeks, so if there is a 4-week delay period on the policy, it pays out up to week 56. Possibly one of the best things about our locum insurance is that there is a continuation option which means that the policy will not be cancelled, or renewal refused if one of the insured has any variation in health.
Call us on 0345 3503655 or email info@locuminsurance.co.uk to discuss your needs.
