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Practice Update.

Welcome to the May edition of our newsletter. At the time of writing, it is bank holiday weekend. There are such a plethora of bank holidays at this time of year and the extra time to be able to spend with friends and family seems such a treat. We hope our patients and team are able to enjoy some rest and recuperation. The sun shining all week has also been a huge bonus. Rest assured our surgeries and reception area are all air conditioned so you will not overheat at the practice should you have an appointment coming up! We invested in air con a few years ago and we are always so grateful of it as temperatures start to rise at this time of year.

Below you will find an update of all that has happened at the practice in the last month along with upcoming events. We consider our team to be our biggest asset and truly believe our people are what set us apart from other practices, so I hope that you find our regular updates of interest to you.

On March 25th we had our Care Quality Commission Inspection. The CQC is the regulator for health and social care services in England and one of the regulators in dental practice that we need to work with to ensure that we deliver safe and effective care.

The CQC use key lines of enquiry to investigate if they deem a service to be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. At the time of our last newsletter the report had not been published but we are pleased to now be able to share this with you. It goes without saying that we passed in all areas.

We would like to offer congratulations and extend our thanks to our whole team but particularly to our practice manager, Hayley James. Hayley has been working at WDC for many years but has only recently been appointed as our registered manager. To have navigated through her first CQC inspection so diligently and so well, is a huge achievement and tantamount to the high standards she sets as our manager. Well done.

Click here to read our 2025 CQC Report.

Toothbrush and Toothpaste Recycling is back at WDC.

A while back we offered a very popular service for recycling toothbrushes & toothpaste tubes at the practice. This was funded by Colgate and run by Terracycle. Unfortunately, Colgate stopped funding this and so we were unable to continue to offer this service. We were astonished however, to find that recycling these products elsewhere was notoriously difficult and found it virtually impossible to find anywhere we could recommend for oral care product.

Boots do offer a limited service but there are caveats placed on how to recycle in exchange for advantage points. Otherwise, we have been unable to find anywhere else that can take these products! We have therefore invested in our own oral care products recycling service right here at the practice. The cost of this will be funded by the business. It is personally important to us to ensure that facilitate responsible recycling in our industry.

Please use the box provided in the waiting area. It is for toothpaste tubes and caps, electric toothbrush heads (those not containing RFID microchips), plastic toothbrushes, floss containers. Interdental brushes are also now accepted and even dental aligners.

Join Us and Get Active with GoVida!

In September this year our team will set out to climb Scotland’s highest peak Ben Nevis to raise money for Footprints Conductive Education Centre, Reverse Rett & B.R.I.L.L. at Nottingham University Hospital. All of these charities have a connection to pat ients at the practice.

In the run up to this, we need to get going with our training and so we have partnered with GoVida Well Being app to embark on a challenge! Between May 9th and September 19th we are going to try to walk the equivalent distance of walking from Bramcote Lane to Ben Nevis! This is 337 miles in just over four months. This time we’re throwing in a bit of a curve ball – our patients, friends and family can join us on this virtual challenge as well!

Our team have used the GoVida app for over a year now to help encourage healthy habits and get active. We would love it if our patients got involved in this challenge with us and it would really help motivate us to train for the real deal! It’s free of charge, there are no catches and no pressure. Simply sign up using the link below, download the GoVida app and link it to your phone or fitness tracker and away you go. If you are feeling charitable and would like to help us hit our fundraising target by donating to our JustGiving page as well, this would be very much appreciated by us and the charities, but even just joining in is worthwhile. It will help raise awareness of these charities and our fundraising and you will almost certainly increase your daily activity and well-being in the process.

On average, our team’s daily activity increases by a third every time we take part in one of these challenges so it really is worthwhile. Please click the link below or scan the QR code and join in!

Click to join our virtual walk to Ben Nevis.

Don’t feel up to joining in with a walking challenge or just don’t fancy it, but would still like to support us? You can donate to our fundraising for these three amazing charities below. Our current total sits at £693 but we’d love to have raised at least £1000 for each of these charities by the time we set out to conquer the beast that is Ben Nevis in September!

Click to donate to our fund raising!

The Magic of Composite Bonding!

Composite bonding is a minimally invasive cosmetic procedure where a tooth coloured resin is applied to the teeth to improve their appearance. It’s great for fixing chips, closing small gaps or helping with discolouration and the resin is carefully shaped to blend in naturally with your smile and preserve your natural tooth structure. The technique for placing this sort of restoration is extremely technique sensitive and done well it can be a brilliant treatment to improve your smile easily and safely. This month one of our practice owners, Anna Lawson, travelled to Manchester to take part in an additional two full days training on this technique. She was taught by the team from The Fresh Dental Institute, receiving additional hands-on training from one of the experts in this field, Monik Vasant.

 Team Celebrations.

Our team celebrated our recent CQC success with an afternoon out in town. We went to Roxy Ballroom, (highly recommend it!), for curling and darts! We followed this with a fabulous meal at Bistro Pierre and a game of Yankee Gift Swap!

Kaylee (right) and Kirsty (left) on our recent team outing to Nottingham!

We also congratulated Kaylee Ferguson (pictured here on the right with Kirsty Ellis, on our recent team afternoon in Nottingham), on being promoted to our Decontamination Lead. Kaylee has worked at the practice in her role as a dental nurse for over seven years and is a massive asset to us. She really is the epitome of a team player! During COVID Kaylee stepped up and worked alongside our dentists at the Urgent Care Centre which was a difficult thing to do. Kaylee also played a large role during our recent inspection, being inspected and questioned on our decontamination processes and HTM01-05 (a huge document from the UK Department of Health about decontamination in primary dental practice). Kaylee now leads our team on all the cross infection and decontamination processes. A hugely important role in running the practice safely. Congratulations Kaylee.

Local Events.

On June 8th this year The Nottingham Motor Show returns to Wollaton Park! This is a free event apart from parking charges. There are food and exhibitors, music and entertainment. A great family day out

click to link to more information on the Nottingham Motor Show 2025

This month’s edition of our newsletter is a little later than normal landing in your inbox and that is because it’s been an incredibly busy month at WDC!

Early on in the month we got a call which we knew must be coming soon, that we were going to have our Care Quality Commission inspection. For those who don’t know what this is, think, Ofsted for healthcare! It wasn’t a big surprise to us as we haven’t had an inspection for some time now so we knew our time must be coming soon! Needless to say we passed our inspection with flying colours and although these things are always a little nerve wracking, overall it was a very positive experience for us. The report has not yet been published but we will share a link to it when it is available.

It was no-secco alcohol free by the way!!

A Big Well Done!

A big shout out goes to Hayley James our practice manager. Hayley took over the role of registered manager just last year when Sam Fletcher stepped down. Being a registered manager with the CQC is a big responsibility. The CQC inspects healthcare services to ensure that they are safe, effective, well led, responsive and caring and the registered person oversees all of this. We met all of the standards in each of these areas. A great start to Hayley’s career as our practice manager. Well done to all of our team as everyone pulled together to support each other.

Outreach Projects.

At the start of the month, Monica and Hayley carried out another school visit, this time to Arnold View Primary School. They had a fun morning talking to the children about keeping their teeth healthy and visiting the dentist! The children loved it and I think Monica and Hayley did too!

Anna and Monica were also due to start their journey volunteering with Dentaid this month. Dentaid is a charity which provides mobile dental units and volunteer workers to provide outreach dental clinics to people experiencing homelessness, harm, poverty and abuse. Sadly due to a lack of funding one clinic was cancelled and then the next due to a problem with the mobile van! We are undeterred so will sign up again and keep you posted on our volunteering experience!

March also saw us signing up to be a Unity Partner for Bridge2Aid. We have sponsored Dental Therapist Magreth Jeremiah Mbukwa to enable her to undertake additional training in order to upskill and undertake more complex work in the Serengema district in the Mwanza region of Tanzania. The Mwanza region as a whole has a population of 3.7 million and has just 4 dentists and 30 dental therapists so there is a huge need for the additional help and skills that Magreth will bring.

Many of our patients will know that for some time now we have supported the work of Gold for Kids. This is a really innovative charity which recycles the scrap metal from dental restorations (such as old crowns) by refining it so that it can be repurposed. The money raised is then donated to children’s charities. We have recently been interviewed by Gold for Kids and the interview was published in Dentistry Magazine. You can read the article by clicking the link below.

Click to read our interview with Gold for Kids

Practice Changes.

This month we have made the difficult decision to give our notice to the local commissioning board that from 1st August 2025 we will be no longer be providing NHS services at our practice. All of our dentists have worked in the NHS for over 20 years and so this decision brings mixed feelings for us. Providing NHS has become increasingly unsustainable. We tried to negotiate with the ICB to allow us to continue to see children and those on lower incomes on an NHS basis but sadly this was declined.

We want to reassure our patients that this change has been made with the long term interests of the practice and our patients in mind. We prioritise a good, compliant and safe service which delivers high quality dentistry to each and every one of our patients. One of our main drives as business owners is also to be good employers and look after our team, always striving to provide them with a great place to work. We have several alternative options for continuing your care with us at the practice. You can read more about this by clicking the link below.

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of our patients for their support over the years.

Click to read more about our practice changes from 1st August 2025.

Sponsorship.

We were approached by Wollaton Cricket Club with a sponsorship opportunity and our now proud sponsors of Asif Riaz

Local Events

Foodies Festival, Wollaton Hall & Deer Park, NG8 2AE.

Great food, great music, great fun. 27th, 28th, 29th June 2025.

Click for more details

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you again at the practice soon. Best wishes, Team WDC.

Should I wait a while after eating or drinking before I brush my teeth?

The short answer is yes! This question is often brought up at the practice.

Commonly our patients will often tell us that they ‘give their teeth a good brush’ after eating or drinking anything, especially anything sweet. Our team of dentists, dental therapists and dental nurses would rather you didn’t, well, not straight away anyway and here’s why!

When we eat, the pH in our mouth shifts. The pH is the scale that determines how acidic an environment or not, your mouth is. After eating and drinking, our mouths temporarily become more acidic-this is a hostile environment for our teeth, our enamel begins to demineralise at this point

and overall these are superb conditions for tooth decay and acid erosion to start to think about kicking in!

During this time, your enamel is vulnerable!! Brushing your teeth at this point potentially brushes sugars and acids into your teeth and brushing itself will also physically have a more abrasive action on enamel right now than at another time.

The good news!

Our mouths are amazing, saliva is a superhero! Saliva gradually neutralises this acid over a period of time (typically around 30 minutes or so) and helps to remineralise our enamel. After this time has passed, you can safely brush your teeth.

So people will ask us…..”What? So I need to wait 30 minutes after breakfast before I brush my teeth? I don’t have the time!”. It is a tricky one, right? Either you can get up earlier, to allow yourself the time to have your breakfast, wait 30 minutes and then brush those toothy pegs, or brush when you first get up and not after you have eaten. Honestly, your teeth will thank you for it!

If you don’t like the idea of leaving the house after breakfast without brushing, then rinsing with water after eating will help clear any food debris. You could even use a daily fluoride mouthwash at this point instead of brushing if you’re really feeling the need for something extra. Chewing sugar free chewing gum will also give you a minty kick and the chewing action stimulates your saliva flow-and we know how good the saliva is for our teeth!

When it comes to brushing, it is essential that your teeth are cleaned thoroughly twice a day. Last thing at night before you go to bed is a non-negotiable time to brush-it just has to be done (and yes-this also should be 30 minutes after eating or drinking, so lay off the late night snacks!). Any remaining plaque and food debris from the day needs to be completely removed before hitting the sack. At night, our mouths become dryer, less saliva means less protection against tooth decay so it is imperative that our teeth get the best chance at survival! The second brush of the day, however, well, timing is less important, it has to be done but when is up to you….just make sure it is at least 30 minutes after you have last eaten or drank (water doesn’t count).

Happy Brushing!

Visiting the dentist is a necessity for maintaining good oral health, but for many people, it can be an anxiety-inducing experience. Dental anxiety is all too common and can affect people of all ages. It can cause fear, stress and even an avoidance of visiting the dentist completely. Fortunately, dentistry has evolved over the years and with TLC we are now able to help most patients overcome their dental anxiety to enable them to achieve the best oral health they can. Please remember, you are not the first patient, nor will you be the last, to feel this way about paying us a visit. We are used to helping people who like you, are nervous about coming to see us and we want to help you.

Understanding Dental Anxiety.

Dental anxiety is not uncommon. The sights, sounds, and sensations associated with dental procedures can trigger fear and discomfort in patients. Often patients will recount negative past experiences to us, or they are worried that a procedure is going to be painful. We believe that no dentistry should be painful. With modern local anaesthetic techniques, there should be no reason that you should experience pain at your appointments.

Often the anticipation of the unknown contributes to dental anxiety and sometimes even embarrassment. Please be comforted by the fact that there is never a need to feel embarrassed or ashamed. We are experienced in our field and making that first step to pay us a visit is often the hardest part. Once we have met you, help starts here! Unfortunately, dental anxiety often is so severe that it can lead individuals to avoid dental care altogether, putting their oral health at risk. Not just that though, living with the fear of the unknown and the ongoing anxiety of knowing that the need to visit the dentist eventually will arise, is often worse and unnecessary if you can make that initial contact.

Building Trust and Communication.

Patient wellbeing is always at the centre of our approach and we focus on creating a comfortable and friendly environment where patients can build trust in our team. We feel that ensuring open communication and understanding throughout treatment and treatment planning is key to helping people to gain confidence in their treatment.

At Wollaton Dental Care we do not offer sedation. In most cases, taking time to build a relationship with our patients is sufficient to enable them to go ahead with treatment that is needed. In a small number of cases, sedation is still required and if this is the case, we can liaise with local providers of sedation to enable you to receive the treatment you need.

Overcoming dental anxiety is possible with a considered and compassionate approach. Don’t let dental anxiety prevent you from achieving optimal oral health. We are here to help you and we want to help you! Seek out a dentist or dental therapist who takes the time to understand your fears and can provide the care and support you need to ensure you feel comfortable and confident in attending the dentist.

Embracing the Great Outdoors: Unleashing the Power of the Team!

In today’s fast-paced world, it is great to be able to switch off, to be able to go off grid and to leave the constant sensory overload for even a few hours. To be able to do this as a team is even better. This weekend we hope to achieve this through our next outdoor team event. These occurrences outside of the workplace give the opportunity to take a break from the practice but also offer unique opportunities for personal and professional growth and friendships.

We hope that getting away as a team, creates an environment that encourages open communication and collaboration among team members. It’s quite a unique thing to go away on a mini break with your teammates and away from the confines of the surgery, individuals can interact in a more relaxed and informal way. Our latest event involves a challenging hike up Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak. Our team must trust and rely on one another, developing and building on their already good working relationships but also hopefully enjoy it together and create some shared memories and experiences.

We have decided to raise money for a local charity alongside our team event and participating in fundraising really fosters a sense of pride in us all. Even those who may not be able to take part in the physical part of the event have had the opportunity to help with the fund raising and raising the awareness and profile of the charity (Our Dementia Choir). Shared experiences outside of ‘work’ are a real leveller and give people a joint goal. The sense of achievement and pleasure from helping others creates a stronger sense of unity between us and we also hope that our patients are also proud to attend our practice and be part of Team WDC (and hopefully will promote their dental practice’s charity endeavours). Strengthened team spirit and improved morale, positively impact our practice and create a buzz in the building. It hopefully adds to our team’s job satisfaction, leading to a more positive work environment overall.

Go Team WDC!

Should I have a bridge or an implant to fill the gap where my tooth was?

image credit Canva

The first thing to mention is that not every gap needs filling! Some people are not concerned with the aesthetics of a missing tooth and very often people can also chew without problems as well. You may find that the thought of having a gap is often worse than the gap itself.

One thing to bear in mind though, if and when you lose a tooth, if you do choose to leave a gap, then the teeth opposite the gap in the opposing jaw and those either side of the gap (in the same jaw) can drift and move over time. Sometimes this can cause problems with food trapping and because of this, it can increase the risk of decay. We see this more often when the tooth in the opposite jaw drifts. The decay can commonly be on the root surface of the tooth which can be difficult to fill and can lead to a poor prognosis and risk of losing another tooth.

So, if you’ve made the decision that you don’t want a gap and that you want to fill the space, then now you’d like to know what your options are….On a basic level, there are three options! A bridge, a denture or an implant. I am going to focus only on fixed options in this article, the implant or a bridge but always remember that sometimes removable false teeth (a denture) can be a good, lower cost and simple solution to replacing missing teeth, especially if you have more than one missing tooth to replace.

There are lots of different options for bridgework but I am going to keep it very simple today and talk only about fixed-fixed bridgework as this is the most common bridgework solution for replacing back teeth. There are other types of bridgework such as adhesive bridgework that are more conservative but these are often unsuitable for replacing back teeth.

Fixed Bridgework Vs Implants.

First and foremost, what is a bridge and what is an implant?

Bridges

A bridge is a ceramic or metal (or more often than not, a combination of both) prosthetic tooth replacement which is attached to the teeth either side of the gap and is cemented into place. In order to do this, the teeth either side of the space have to be altered in size sufficiently to accommodate the bridge material (porcelain and metal). Have a look at the little animation attached to help explain what I mean by this.

This is by no means a conservative option, as approximately two millimetres of tooth tissue have to be removed from the full outer layer of the tooth. Due to the destructive nature of this procedure, it would never be my first choice for tooth replacement if the teeth either side of the gap are otherwise untouched. Often however, teeth may be heavily filled or crowned, already and a lot of what needs be removed, may be filling material. This might sway a decision. Due to the process of preparing teeth for bridgework (and potentially because a lot of teeth undergoing this procedure have already been heavily filled due to fracture or decay earlier in life), a proportion of teeth involved in crown and bridgework will go on to lose their vitality and the nerve will die off. This is true, no matter how carefully or how well the procedure is carried out, even though steps can be taken to minimise this risk. There is more chance of this in a younger patient. This is because throughout our lives, the pulp chamber in our teeth (where the nerves live) gradually gets smaller and protective dentine thickens as we get older. In a younger person, the pulps in teeth are larger and as a result more likely to be affected by the procedure of preparing the teeth for a bridge. If a tooth loses vitality and dies, then this can cause severe toothache and subsequently an infection in the form of an abscess.

Either of these conditions would need to be treated with root canal treatment or an extraction! Ultimately this could mean a two tooth gap, where you only had a one tooth gap before!

The benefit to having a bridge is that it tends to be a cheaper alternative to an implant and is often quicker. A provisional bridge can be placed immediately after extraction of a tooth and a permanent bridge can be placed three months after extraction of a tooth.

A three tooth bridge (one space and two teeth either side) currently costs approximately £1500 at Wollaton Dental Care. Each case is different and an accurate treatment plan would be provided before embarking on treatment, so that exact costs can be given to you.

Implants.

I like to think of an implant being a false tooth root which is placed directly into the bone where the tooth is missing. A crown is then placed on the top of the false root. The benefit of the implant is that it is a fixed replacement for your tooth without having to cause any damage to adjacent teeth. Sometimes an implant can be placed immediately following the extraction of a tooth, other times, a healing period is needed.

Have a watch of the animation below to understand what an implant is.

The disadvantage of an implant is that it is a surgical procedure and tends to be more expensive than a bridge due to the materials, surgery time and expertise needed in order to place implants. There are also risks associated with implants in the same way as there are with our own teeth. Although implants can’t decay, gum disease can still occur around implants and a high level of oral hygiene is advised in order to maintain your implants well. We advise regular hygienist appointments in order to make sure you are looking after your implants appropriately. Otherwise we would liken it to buying a high performance car and never having it serviced!

It is important to make sure implants are placed appropriately. Not all patients or mouths are suitable for implants! Some medical conditions can preclude implant placement or certainly make it more risky. There needs to be sufficient bone available to place implants and sometimes, for upper teeth, a procedure needs to be carried out on the sinus to ensure that there is enough space to place the implant.

We believe it is important that high quality dental implants are placed with a history of good quality research into the product. When we think back to the PIP breast implant scandal, it is a good example of a cheaper product being placed without the appropriate clinical trials to back up their use. For this reason, we place Straumann implants. These are not a cheap product and thus our prices, are also not the cheapest, but we feel confident that we would be happy having them placed in our own mouths and that there is a support system in place should complications occur.

To train to be able to place implants competently and confidently is also a lengthy and costly experience for any clinician who wishes to work to high level. Of course, any dentist can quickly begin placing implants but case selection is everything as is preparation, training and cross infection/surgical set up. This takes time to train properly and keep standards high with excellent attention to the small detail. Certain cases are more complex than others. We work closely with local specialist practice The Campbell Clinic in order to ensure mentoring is utilised if needed or referral on for complex cases is ensured where necessary. We believe that The Campbell Clinic is the best in the business for complex implant dentistry and we are more than happy to recommend and liaise with them in order to offer this service to our patients. You can be sure that we will always be honest and open with all of our discussions with you and if we think you would benefit from being seen elsewhere then this will be discussed. At Wollaton Dental Care, both principal dentist Simon Lawson and our associate David Bell can competently and confidently take on straight forward implant cases and we are delighted to now be able to offer this for our patients in house.

A single tooth implant placement at Wollaton Dental Care costs approximately £3000. Every case is different, some take longer, some are quicker. Some need other associated procedures, others do not. Therefore an exact cost is only possible once your own personal case has been assessed. You will then be provided with an accurate treatment plan including exact costs..

image credit Canva

Our reception team still get asked every day by patients if they still need to wear a mask when attending their appointments. We get it-people are keen to know what is asked of them.

It hasn’t been mandatory in England to wear masks in health care settings for many months now. For a while at Wollaton Dental Care, we continued to politely ask our patients if they would mind still wearing a mask when attending their appointments with us whilst in our waiting areas. This was after careful consideration, in order to protect our vulnerable patients particularly when there were increases in COVID cases in Nottingham.

We decided to remove this request around Autumn of last year. This was both for our patients and for our team members (when not treating patients). We are acutely aware that face masks are very much a barrier to effective communication for all patients but particularly for those who may not hear well or those patients who are deaf. Many people find them hard to breath normally in and some people get claustrophobic. Masks can also add to problems with their vision for some people as they struggle to clear the mist from their glasses caused by wearing a mask inside when coming in from the cooler weather outside! It is also harder to read nonverbal communication cues such as facial expressions and to a certain extent body language too. We want to see if you are smiling!

Prior to COVID, our clinicians would have felt it was highly inappropriate to speak to a patient whilst wearing their mask as it is a known barrier to communication and we remember that! You may still see the odd one of us floating around in a mask. This might be someone not in a face to face role at that time or just their personal preference. We also ask team members with any symptoms of a respiratory virus (such as a cold) to wear a mask.

If you feel more comfortable continuing to wear a mask, then please of course do so but for all of the above reasons, we no longer request that our patients wear a mask when visiting our practice.