Integrated Dental Holdings

It came as a surprise to many of my followers in dentistry when I decided to take a management position with IDH as part of my overall activities at the latter end of 2008.

The nature of this role has changed over time and I now act as a freelance consultant to IDH assisting them first of all in the ongoing training and education of members of their private and specialist division and also helping them with recruitment roadshows.

Although IDH is primarily an NHS corporate they do have a large number of both fully private practices and specialist referral centres - in fact, if one were to add together the gross turnover of these practices they would be in their own right one of the top five corporates in the UK.

Clearly, this particular division of the company required some individual attention as their business systems and customer service requirements would be slightly different from the NHS core business.

Over a period of two years now I have delivered both training workshops and mastermind meetings to members of the private and specialist division with particular reference nowadays to working with clinicians and the practice management team.

This has enabled us to create a distinctive brand for the private and specialist division and also to implement a range of individually designed marketing initiatives first of all web based and secondly through relationship and direct marketing.

It has been a pleasure to work with the many "local heroes" who exist within this large corporate.

Matt Jackson, IDH

 IDH has developed a very effective business model focused upon NHS Dentistry. Chris Barrow has been instrumental in the thinking and development, which has shaped our approach to developing our next growth story... our journey into private dentistry.  

Carol Reece, Primary Care Contracting Manager, NHS Coventry

 NHS Coventry commissioned the services of Chris Barrow/The Dental Business Club some 9 months ago in order to provide customer service training for NHS Dental practices. During this period he has developed and delivered a bespoke customer service training programme for the 36 NHS Dental practices within Coventry. This has resulted in improved quality of customer service delivery along with the benefits of a low cost marketing tool to encourage new patients to access NHS dental care. Feedback from practices suggests that they have a raised level of feeling valued and supported along with the added value of liaising with peers within different practices.