Practice Update
Northbourne Dental Practice www.northbournedental.com Issue No.48 Sept/Oct 2011
Our QR code! Dentist’s annual leave
Mr Domoney will have some time off at the end of
September. As ever, our regulars will be seen as normal, but
may need to see whichever dentist is available if an
emergency appointment is required.
Please book your treatment!
Another request to a minority of patients to book a suitable
What is this, you may ask. It is a type of barcode that many appointment for treatment. If you are booked for a check up,
mobile phones can scan to store info, or in this case, take you from 6 months ago, it is not easy to also deal with a list of
to our website. A large version is available to scan on the tooth problems. Given advance warning, we will always
notice board in the porch. endeavour to allow more time, but it is not fair to make us run
late and keep others waiting. End of moan from Mr D!!!
Recommend a friend Facebook & Twitter
We will run this for another month only, so if you wish to take As well as the website, we are now on Facebook, and
part, send your friends, neighbours or colleagues along soon. welcome patients to join us as friends so they can keep in
If a new patient presents us with one our new silver cards closer touch of any news. If you use Facebook, then please
when they sign up as a plan member, they will pay a send us a friend request, so that you can see our latest news.
registration fee of only £20, rather than the usual £40. We are also linked to Twitter too, @ northbournedent, so you
can follow news there as well.
Also if you ensure your name is on the card, you will be
entered in a new monthly draw to win £40 of M&S vouchers. Tree reduction in the front garden
This new scheme will run for 6 months before we review how
it is working. We only have a limited amount of space for new The acacia tree on the front lawn unfortunately developed a
patients but will allow long enough for all of you to large dead bough, so whilst his was being removed, we had
recommend people who may be interested in joining us. the overall height of the tree reduced. This was last done 6 or
7 years ago, and will leave far less mess on the driveway.
Toothpaste samples
It seems that toothpaste companies are battling with each Under 18s and the NHS
other at the moment, and there are plenty of samples being We fell short of our NHS targets again, due to patients failing
sent out. Our regulars are welcome to take samples of Oral B to keep to recommended recall intervals. It seems again that
and Colgate toothpastes, as they are ideal for travel bags. we will have to give back thousands of pounds of funding to
the NHS and this money is lost for ever. As a result we have
Care Quality Commission less funding for further practice improvements, even though
All Dental Practices had to register with this new regulatory we have allocated surgery time for under 18s !!!
body by April 2011. The paperwork involved is often
duplicated with the existing regulators and the cost in time and PLEASE BRING YOUR CHILDREN REGULARLY.
money is huge. The cost to our practice will be £1600 per
year, and the work-hours ticking all the boxes are vast. Clearly Emergency numbers
this is having quite an impact on the running of Practices, but For anyone who has not made a note of the out of hours
we assure you that we are doing all we can to meet the tough numbers, they are 0795 6633221 for Teladent, our local rota,
deadlines. As of 5/9/11 the CQC have only completed one of and 0800 525631for the DPAS helpline. Please store these
our forms and not started the other. It seems they are too busy numbers on your mobile phone for easier access.
sorting out Care Homes and Hospitals that have had problems
after passing all the CQC tick-boxing exercises. They are so
far behind that they have asked the DoH to delay the Ingwe Leopard Project etc.
registration or doctors by a full year! This is run by a good friend of Mr Domoney, in South Africa,
CQC Audits and aims to promote wildlife issues to the locals, as well as
supporting them in various ways.
As part of our on-going CQC registration, we need to collect Thanks to those patients who have already contributed to our
data about ‘outcomes’. In plain English this means we will be next collection of pens and pencils, which should be taken to
asking for feedback, and conducting short surveys and the school in December when Will and Carol visit us. If
questionnaires to ask about the overall experience of being a anyone wishes to send any more, then please feel free to drop
‘service user’ at our Practice. Yes, that is the new CQC term them in to us.
for being a patient!
Please use this opportunity to give us any feedback about what
we are doing well, and where we could improve or adapt.
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