A new business model

Matt Hadman talks to Craig Walsh, owner of Buxton Dental Practice, about why he decided to move away from the NHS and go membership-only after the practice reopened following lockdown.

MH: Why did you decide to move from being a mixed practice to fully private, and how did Covid-19 impact this decision?
CW: When I bought Buxton Dental Practice, I had a small NHS contract, a list of membership plan patients and a list of private PAYG patients. So, I had the opportunity to try these different elements and find which mix worked best for me.

I sat down and thought about what I loved doing most when I first came out of dental school and what I didn’t like doing now, and what I needed to do to get back to doing more of what makes me happy.

I thought about what kind of dentistry I wanted to provide, and I decided that to do that I had to be fully private and membership-only. This was just before we went into lockdown, which obviously put the brakes on everything.