A matter of timing

Time is running out - it’s a strange phrase and I often wonder which part of the world will come to an end when time finally runs out. For the dental community, I wonder if dentistry will still exist when time runs out. The most recent conundrum in dentistry focuses on time; that is the timing of the next NHS contract and also whether or not this new iteration will be time limited.

Time is a big feature within healthcare and this is no different in dentistry. Time is one of the components of the disease pathway, without it dental caries would not occur and we all need time to do our work. In dentistry, time is just as much a currency as is a UDA, this is not always obvious but UDAs also translate to a component of time. NHS dentists often discuss the number of UDAs that they need to achieve in a day or the amount of time it takes to carry out a procedure such as root canal treatment.