Introduction - Overview
More than 100,000 personnel are employed in a variety of ways in the dental industry.Dentistry covers a wide area ranging from primary care in general practice to secondary care embracing the hospital services where highly specialised treatment is provided by consultant maxillofacial surgeons and their teams.They are responsible for performing the most complex surgical operations and looking after the everyday needs of patients referred from general practice.
There are 14,000 dental practices in the UK that are responsible for the provision of the General Dental Services.These private practices provide employment for more than 60,000 personnel ranging from highly qualified dental specialists to trainee dental nurses who may have just left school.The NHS General Dental Services are sub-contracted from private practice by local Health Authorities.
There is an exceptionally wide variety of career opportunities that ranges between the responsibilities of owning and running a small high street business (a dental practice) to becoming the Chief Executive of an international dental company with links to the healthcare industry.
