Is there room in the UK for an EASYJET Style Dental Practice?
WIZZ Air (a Hungarian based low cost carrier) and British Airways both fly to Bucharest in Romania. The difference between British Airways and WIZZ Air is two things, one is price with WIZZ Air being far, far cheaper but using the exact same aircraft, two is the locations while British Airways flies from Heathrow WIZZ Air flies from Luton. Both airlines have aircrafts with leather seats, on WIZZ Air you have to buy your drinks and food but on a three hour flight is this an issue?
I am totally intrigued on this matter so I decided to put down some thoughts.
Here in Romania at HappyDental we regularly get enquiries from patients in the UK who want to discuss having dental work done. The common theme to all the enquiries is the excessive prices they are being quoted in the UK by private practice dentists.
As a dentist I am concerned about peoples dental health and this comes through in my work and has helped me create a nice dental business here in Romania. I try and instil this ethos into the dentists that work for me here at HappyDental.
I maintain a property in London so I regularly get utility bills so I know the base costs for those are similar to here in Romania. Actually our gas here is slightly more expensive. So I see heating, lighting and general costs are similar. So where are the extra costs coming in from for the fees to be this high? I have been looking for properties in the UK and Ireland to expand so I have made myself aware of the base costs for property rentals and I have discovered the cost for a new location in the UK and Ireland is about 20% more expensive than here in Ploiesti, Prahova, Romania. This is a reasonably sized town with a population of 300,000 souls. The average salary here in Ploiesti is €400.00/month, that’s Four Hundred Euros not Four Thousand so no-one thinks there is a typo. Here in Ploiesti the competition is stiff with over 200 registered dental clinics. My clinic has three surgeries and is based in a property in the north of the town.
I have been thinking of opening a more Spa like clinic here in Ploiesti to attract the wealthier clients that are here in Ploiesti. But with the rents that are being quoted here and the rents being quoted in the UK and Ireland it brings me full circle to my opening question.
Now the cost for setting up a surgery in a dental clinic in the UK and Ireland has been quoted to me in the region of £20,000-£30,000 per surgery. WOW!! This price is in my opinion outrageous. When I set up a new dental surgery in our country practice I was able to completely fit out the dental surgery with all the requirements except for a dental x-ray machine which I am currently waiting for permission to be installed and the total cost outlay was less than €10,000.00 and everything that was used was bought brand new and paid for without financing or leasing which is pretty well unavailable here in Romania. Since then I have discovered that I could buy an EU approved dental unit, dental chair, for $3000.00 direct from the manufacturer. This would include all shipping, delivery and import duties to Romania. It is the same price to ship and import to the UK and Ireland.
So I look at the UK and Irish markets, I see a huge need for dentists and a huge supply of potential patients who are willing to travel over seas to get dental treatment and I begin to think that instead of bringing the patients to us why don’t we go to the patients. But WHY are the UK and Irish dentists not attacking this market themselves and reducing their prices and grasping a huge market of patients who can be taken on board today? Over 20,000 patients went to Poland and Hungary to have dental work done in 2009 and there is at least 100,000 more enquires for overseas dental work. So the market potential is huge and the barrier currently for these patients and UK/Ireland based dental practices is simply price.
Now with dental treatments you have the importance of it being a health issue so to most of our enquires I decline to do the work as I know the follow up is of the highest importance when dealing with these patients and when you travel abroad to have dental work problems do occur.
So back to the question in hand, an EASYJET Dental service in the UK and Ireland, is it viable or will it be attacked by the GDC/IDC and local health authorities? The government and the NHS are killing dentists with more and more paperwork, just like here, patients are screaming they can’t get dental work done within their budgets and are looking to go abroad.
With the amount of work a dentist has to do to achieve 500 NHS Units per month and the back log of patients and payments and EASYJET Dental Practice in the UK or Ireland would soar by offering exactly what a private practice currently does but at a price the public will grab onto.
Dr Luana O’Connor
CEO
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