Prima Dental wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade

UK precision dental instrument manufacturer, Prima Dental, has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade in recognition of its outstanding growth in overseas sales over the last three years.

A long-established market leader in carbide and steel dental burs in the UK, Prima Dental also exports precision dental products to 90 countries around the world. From its production facilities in Gloucester, Prima Dental engineers 30 million micron-accurate carbon, diamond and steel dental burs a year. It has also applied its dentistry expertise and invested £1m in the launch of a new trading division earlier this year called Prima Digital, capitalising on the rapidly-growing global digital dentistry market.

This is the second Queen’s Award for Prima Dental, as the company also won the accolade in 2014. Since then the company has continued to expand, building a permanent presence in key global markets including a subsidiary company in India and joint venture companies in Brazil and China.

Richard Muller, managing director at the 215-strong Gloucester manufacturer, commented: “We are thrilled and honoured to be recognised with another Queen’s Award for Enterprise. This is an amazing accolade and is testament to our dedicated and skilled team who are all instrumental in our growth and success.

“The Queen’s Award comes at a hugely exciting time for Prima as we are witnessing strong growth in overseas trade for our precision dental instruments, as well as new opportunities opening up in digital dentistry. Applying our precision engineering expertise and knowledge of materials, we have just launched the highest quality tool for the digital market and we believe our digital division will be a huge part of our future business.”

With 40 years’ continuous experience in dental engineering, UK manufacturing and export, Richard Muller, 61, has orchestrated the firm’s growth. Richard took the helm at Prima Dental in 1998 and under his stewardship the company has grown to become the world’s fastest-growing bur manufacturer. Last year Richard was awarded a coveted British Dental Industry Association Award in recognition of innovation in his field and his significant contribution to the dental sector.

Today Prima employs 215 staff at its production facility in Gloucester and is set to grow to 250 staff by 2020. It is currently on a recruitment drive to fulfil its planned expansion.

Prima Dental’s growth strategy is based entirely on growing international trade, which accounts for 88 per cent of its turnover. It has invested over £8.5m in the last five years in new plant and equipment in the UK in addition to a new £3m factory and Research and Innovation Centre, adjacent to its existing plant, which has doubled its manufacturing capacity. The company has also grown its talent base and created new strategic roles to facilitate growth including Head of Operations, Head of Research and Innovation, Supply Chain Manager and Continuous Improvement Manager.

The Queen’s Award is the UK’s most prestigious business award, designed to recognise outstanding achievement by UK businesses in the fields of international trade, innovation, sustainable development and promoting opportunity through social mobility. A Queen’s Award is valid for five years and winners are entitled to fly The Queen’s Award flag and use the emblem on packaging, stationary, advertising and websites.

Prima Dental can expect an invitation to attend a royal reception at Buckingham Palace, hosted by Her Majesty The Queen. An award presentation ceremony will also take place by the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, Dame Janet Trotter at Prima’s production facility at Waterwells Business Park.

Devolution, evolution and revolution? Dentists to debate the issues at LDCs’ conference

The looming crisis in recruiting NHS dentists and the need for a level playing field for all dentists competing for NHS contracts, are among the topical issues that will be debated at this year’s annual conference of Local Dental Committees (LDCs) in Belfast on 7-8 June.

Some of the 200 delegates in attendance will also be calling on the government to commit a portion of the tax raised from sugary drinks to be spent on oral health schemes for children, and to improve funding of community dental services.

There will be a timely discussion on whether devolution improves dental care or takes the ‘N’ out of the NHS. This will include presentations from Michael Donaldson (responsible for commissioning health service dentistry in Northern Ireland) and Ben Squires (with similar responsibility for Greater Manchester). Ben will share his experience of DevoManc and where commissioning dentistry fits in the health and social care framework.

A Question Time debate will explore the benefits of devolved commissioning of dental care, and ask whether, in fact, this creates more barriers to healthcare. The panel will include all the chief dental officers in the UK: Sara Hurley (England), Colette Bridgeman (Wales), Margie Taylor (Scotland) and Simon Reid (Northern Ireland).

Professor Stephen Fayle, consultant in paediatric dentistry (Leeds Dental Institute), will discuss the importance of prevention for everyone, while general dental practitioner Claudia Peace will share her experience as an associate in a prototype practice in Wiltshire.

John Milne, the Care Quality Commission’s senior national dental adviser, will provide an update on developments around the Practitioners Advice and Support Scheme, which is also the subject of several motions.

Joe Hendron, Chair of the 2018 LDCs Annual Conference, said: “Since we’re having our annual conference in Belfast, it seems fitting to look at the impact of devolution on dentistry.

“This is no longer confined to countries, as the government continues to push its traditional responsibilities out to the regions, look at DevoManc.

“Is this a way of taking the ‘national’ out of our health service and blaming the ‘outposts’ if they’re poorly funded by central government, or genuinely the best way of addressing local differences?

“Whatever the answers, I am looking forward to hearing the debates and the first-hand accounts of our expert speakers in dental commissioning.”

Peter Dyer re-elected as BDA Chair of hospital dentists

Peter Dyer, oral and maxillofacial surgeon, has been re-elected as the Chair of the British Dental Association’s Central Committee for Hospital Dental Services (CCHDS) for the 2018/2020 triennium, having first being elected in 2015.

Peter was appointed consultant in oral and maxillofacial surgery to the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust in 1998 with a special interest in trauma and orthognathics. He has worked as the medical director for the Trust and is the responsible officer for overseeing the appraisal and revalidation of medical staff.

He was closely involved in the development of the new dental school at the University of Central Lancashire and also with the new medical school at Lancaster University. He co-edited the Handbook of Immediate Care and has contributed chapters about dento-facial trauma in a number of textbooks. As hospital dentists are employed on the same terms of service as doctors, Peter led the BDA’s response to the junior doctors’ contract dispute and was determined to secure a contract that is both safe for patients and practitioners alike.

In recognition of his major contribution to dentistry, the BDA and in reducing artificial barriers between primary and secondary care, Peter was appointed as the union’s president whose term expires next month.

Thanking CCHDS members for electing him to the office of chair, Peter said: “The profession is currently facing significant challenges, not least the new trainee contract needs to be implemented fairly, and ditto any changes to the consultant contract.

“It’s frustrating too that the long-recognised need to create a no-blame culture in hospitals, akin to the airline industry, has been undermined by the questionable handling by all those involved in the Bawa Garba case.

“How long more do we have to wait for a culture that promotes learning from mistakes rather than penalising individuals for systemic failures that place patients at risk? Let us hope that this sad case will be a tipping point and we will start to see a paradigm shift in attitudes and behaviours of regulators.

“It’s also unclear how hospital dental departments will be affected when the latest model for commissioning services – Integrated Care Systems [formerly called the Sustainability and Transformation Plans] – comes into play.

“Health Education England’s proposals to radically change the way dentists are trained have not only set alarm bells ringing in the dental community, they also fail to consider the knock-on effects to hospital dental services and the patients we serve.

“Our committee will also be working hard to address the anomalous routes for entry to the GDC’s specialist register for clinicians who have not undertaken formal training. The regulator’s current process is not as transparent as the GMC’s for the medical and surgical specialties.”

The Vice-Chair, Pete Brotherton, was also re-elected, having been elected himself in 2015.