Borrowash Dental Centre, Derby

Borrowash is a village in the Erewash district of Derbyshire, immediately east of the Derby city boundary. It is home to Borrowash Dental Centre – a mixed NHS and Private practice run by principal dentist Anil Chand.

Mr Chand studied at The University of Birmingham, and gained his Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) in 1995. He performed voluntary dentistry in Romania in 1996. He worked as a ‘ Senior House Officer’ in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn before returning to his home city of Nottingham to work as an Associate Dentist. He took over Borrowash Dental Centre in 2002, and has worked to expand it’s services since then.

The Practice now operates three surgeries and is staffed by Mr Chand and two other dentists, three qualified and one trainee nurse, and two receptionists. When Mr Chand took over the practice it was entirely paper-based, but regulatory changes prompted him to look for a computerised practice management system in 2014. He chose Pearl Dental Software from Baker Heath Associates Limited (BHA).

“Pearl is the first and only practice management system I’ve used,” he says. “I saw the company’s name in The Dental Journal, and realising they were local to me I called them to ask their advice on what I would need. They were so helpful that I didn’t bother speaking with any other company.”

Anil Chand – Borrowash Dental Centre

All the functions needed now and in the future

Mr Chand feels he doesn’t use all the features available in Pearl; but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need them. “We currently use the functions for appointments, recalls, text reminders, clinical records and charting,” he explains. “We also use the EDI transmission functions. We don’t use many of the reporting features yet but we have plans to do so. In fact, during a recent audit, we were easily able to find the information we needed by using some reporting features we hadn’t bothered with before.”

Borrowash Dental Centre also has mid-term plans to move to digital imaging technologies and away from film-based X-rays. “Pearl’s ability to interface with a wide variety of imaging solutions gives us the freedom to choose when we make the move and what technology we buy. I feel some other systems limit your choices.”

Development processes led by customer feedback

The first version of Pearl used at Borrowash Dental Centre did draw a little criticism from a couple of nurses who had been trained on rival systems. “They felt that the navigation was too hierarchical, and while they could find everything easily, it required too many ‘clicks’ to move around. We and some other practices used Pearl’s ‘Wish List’ feedback process to raise this, issue,” says Mr Chand. “And in the latest release this has been fully addressed. There are new icons on the screen and better automatic options, such as suggested options for paediatric patients that pop up automatically. BHA are very responsive to good ideas for their software.”

Outstanding support

“From my earliest dealings with BHA, the support has been outstanding. I cannot fault them,” declares Mr Chand. “Pearl is developed by a company not much bigger than most independent dental practices. That means they understand the time pressures and customer service needs of a small business. If they can help with something they help. Not just their own software.” For Mr Chand and Borrowash Dental Centre that extends to hardware support, dealing with network issues and other general IT problems. “We aren’t IT specialists, so if we have a computer problem it can quickly stop our business. Peal’s support team just help us get going very quickly using remote access to our system, or simply talking one of the team through the necessary steps.”

Family and friends test

The NHS has a ‘customer care’ programme called ‘Family and friends test’. Essentially, it surveys dental patients to see if they would recommend their dentist to their friends and family. This can be a time and paper-intensive chore for the reception staff (and patients), but BHA has an innovative solution. Pearl Family and Friends is a simple tablet-based system that gathers feedback and submits a report to the NHS. The system is free to Pearl users, and inexpensive to users of competitor systems. “We use Pearl’s Family and Friends Test,” says Mr Chand. “We have a tablet computer sat on the reception desk. It’s simple for us to use and easy for the patients to give feedback. It has the added bonus that they don’t feel under pressure to fill in yet another form, so the feedback is honest and therefore more useful.”

Favourite bits

“Charting and clinical record features are excellent in Pearl – very easy to recall and even print if required,” says Mr Chand. “The recall features are also excellent, and we also use the text message reminders which work very well. The software is very good and BHA has an excellent programme to keep it compliant with regulatory and best practice changes.” “However, the best part of Pearl is the excellent customer service. I’d give them ten-out-of-ten. I’d recommend BHA and Pearl.”

The practice in brief

Borrowash Dental Centre
23 Victoria Ave,
Borrowash,
Derby DE72 3HE

Tel: 01332 661944

Owner / principal dentist: Anil Chand
Staff :
1 principal dentist
1 associate dentist
1 foundation dentist
3 qualified dental nurses
2 receptionists
1 trainee dental nurse
(as at October 2017)
Opening hours:
Mon-Weds, 9:00am-5:00pm
Thursday, 9:00am-12:30pm
Friday, 8:30am-12:30pm
Pearl user since April 2014

More information

For more information, please call 0116 275 9995 or go to our ‘Contact Us’ page.