Ian Gordon, founder of Vitality Complete Dental Care
Aug 10 2010 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette
Ian Gordon has spent his whole career in the teeth of dentistry - and he's still smiling. Jez Davison reports.
DENTIST Ian Gordon reckons he has the perfect remedy to prepare people for a career in the National Health Service.
His advice is to buy a copy of Who Moved My Cheese, the legendary narrative on organisational change that has sold more than 20m copies, and give it the once-over at least every three years.
“If you don’t like change, don’t work in the NHS,” he says with a grin.
The Teessider is too long in the tooth to get stressed about work, having navigated all manner of challenges in his 26 years in public and private sector dentistry.
By far the toughest has been meeting stiff, Government-imposed targets which, at times, he felt were at odds with patient needs.
“It can be incredibly tough. If you miss a target by 10% you could have up to £40,000 of funding withdrawn by the Primary Care Trust.”
With PCTs and Strategic Health Authorities set to be scrapped as part of a massive shake-up of UK health services, questions over future funding streams for NHS dentists remain hanging in the air.
It’s an important issue for Stokesley-born Ian, whose work spans the public and private sectors.
Two years ago he launched Vitality Complete Dental Care in Stokesley with his wife Jayne and he’s also a partner and dentist in the Alpha Dental Studio, an eight-strong chain of practices serving NHS patients across Teesside and North Yorkshire.
While he has become used to the fluctuations of fast-paced, high-volume NHS work, he clearly enjoys the autonomy of running a private practice.
“(At Vitality) we are free of NHS restrictions on the care we provide and free from the targets that dentists must deliver.
“It means we can offer a more bespoke treatment around the patients’ needs and wishes.”
Cutting your teeth in private dentistry, though, is no quick route to a small fortune.
While premium fees are often significantly higher than subsidised NHS charges, patient throughput is nowhere near as fast, causing difficulty for practitioners aiming for rapid scale-up of their business.
But Stokesley’s newest dentistry double-act is making a fine chew of it so far, generating £270,000 in their first year of trading.
The duo are on course to increase that to £400,000 after expanding their service offering to include mouth cancer screening and facial implants as well as routine check-ups, oral hygiene advice and cosmetic dental treatments.
Patients can sign up to payment plans from £12 per month, or visit on a pay-as-you go basis where a regular check-up typically costs £45 - almost three times the £16.50 charged by subsidised NHS practices.
But private practices offer popular add-ons, not least discounts off treatment fees and a personalised service.
“Patient choice is important in all aspects of dentistry - whether you go on the NHS or privately. And it has improved a lot in recent years.”
Ian has been through several cycles of change since starting out in the mid-1980s, when dental technology and treatments lacked the sophistication of current models.
He graduated with a degree in dentistry from Newcastle University in 1984 and immediately set about cutting his teeth in the industry, gaining his first post at a practice in Guisborough.
He went on to work at practices in Middlesbrough and Eaglescliffe before returning to Guisborough to establish Roseberry Dental Practice and eventually form The Dental Centre Group (TDC) with fellow dentist Ben Wild.
When TDC was sold in 2007 to Integrated Dental Holdings, a corporate group with more than 250 UK practices serving 2m patients, he decided to start again with Vitality and Alpha.
The 50-year-old acknowledges it’s unusual for a dentist to sell their practice and then start all over again - but Alpha and Vitality are thriving under a different structure with five partners including his wife Jayne, former business partner Ben and three younger dentists who used to work for TDC.
His 22-year-old daughter Christine, a dental student, may even follow in his footsteps one day.
If she does, she’ll enter an industry currently facing a great deal of uncertainty.
New contracts are set to replace current dentist-PCT agreements, under which a controversial points-driven system has resulted in reduced funding for practices that have failed to meet strict targets.
The industry has criticised the scheme, claiming it gives practitioners little chance of meeting the targets.
Ian wants to see a fairer system in place but has little idea what the Government has in store.
“The new contracts will be based on quality and outcomes - whatever that means.”
He’ll probably dust off his copy of Spencer Johnson’s motivational classic again - but having gone through a quarter century of change in the industry, he’s sure he can roll with a bit more.
Factfile
Age: 50
Born: Stokesley
Family life: Lives in Stokesley with his wife Jayne and has three children: Christine, 22, 21-year-old John and Jake, 11
Downtime: Mountain walking, helping out with his son’s football team, Stokesley Under-11s, and occasionally playing the church organ in Stokesley Methodist Church
Strengths: Good people manager with an appreciation of fairness
Limitations: Doesn’t give himself enough leisure time
Favourite gadgets: Blackberry and his car, a Porsche 911
Favourite TV programme: Have I Got News For You
Favourite football team: The Boro
Favourite newspaper: The Times
Favourite holiday destination: India
