Practice Manager - Overview
Over recent years significant changes have taken place in the way in which Primary Dental Care is provided in the UK. Further fundamental changes are under debate with the need to introduce Clinical Governance. A raft of Health and Safety legislation and stringent cross infection controls have added further headaches for dentists. These changes have created the need for skills such as administration, marketing, presentation, personnel and financial management within a dental practice, which would not have been thought of a decade ago. Since 1984 Governments have passed 18 separate pieces of legislation (such as The Working Time Directive, changes to Maternity Leave rights and Parental Leave), all of which affect the running of a dental practice.
As the job of running a successful dental practice becomes more complex and time consuming the dentists involved find themselves fully occupied with clinical procedures. A qualified Practice Manager therefore becomes a necessity in the larger dental practices that employ several personnel in order to allow all the clinicians to concentrate on their tasks in the surgery. The Practice Manager is employed to implement the policy laid down by the owners of the practice and to ensure that these policies are carried out consistently and efficiently.
