The annual Oral Health Awards ceremony took place last week and we are very proud that Brightside Dental were finalists in the category of “Best Dental Care of Nervous Patients”.

At Brightside, we pride ourselves on providing painless dentistry in a calm and gentle environment. We work hard and invest in regular training to improve both our communication and clinical skills; along with using the most up to date technology to help our patients in the best way we can.

Unfortunately, we see from many of our patients that they have had bad dental experiences in the past which makes them fearful and often puts them off visiting the dentist. The awards were really refreshing to see so many like-minded colleagues who focus on providing the best patient care they can; as sometimes it seems like we are in a minority.

Many of Brightside’s happy patients leave online reviews sharing their experiences, some of which can be seen here : https://www.brightsidedental.co.uk

If you are scared of visiting the dentist, or know someone who is, please do get in touch as we would love to be able to help.

Mouth Cancer Action month takes place in November and has been an event organised by the Oral Health Foundation since 2000. The purpose is to raise the awareness of mouth cancer and to be “mouthaware”

Last year over 8000 people were diagnosed with mouth cancer in the UK. The chances of beating mouth cancer are greatly increased if it is spotted early and treated accordingly. With early diagnosis, the odds of survival are 9 out of 10. However, it’s often detected at a later stage.

Follow the link to see Brightside Dental’s principal dentist Ketan discuss further about mouth cancer and what you can do to reduce your risk.

At Brightside Dental, we carry out screening for mouth cancer as part of all of our new patient visits and regular oral health assessments. If you would like further advice give us a call on 020 88884401 or visit https://www.dentalhealth.org/mouthcancer

Sarmi had been a long standing patient of Brightside Dental, but moved away from the area so ended up changing dentist. She came back to see Dr Ketan Shah with a view to having orthodontic treatment.

Click the link to see Sarmi share her story.

After a consultation and discussion, it was decided to carry out composite bonding. Sarmi achieved a mini smile makeover in 1 hour, with immediate results on the day and at a fraction of the cost of orthodontic treatment.

At Brightside Dental, our aim is to always in the first instance to carry out the least invasive; most comfortable; fast and cost effective solutions for our patients to achieve the smile they desire.
To find out about about your options for smile improvements call us on 020 88884401.

We had one of our treatment rooms refurbished at Brightside Dental last year. One of the most important items of equipment for us are the dental chairs – both for the comfort of our patients and for us to work in the best ways possible.

Last year we made a mistake of changing to a supplier that was relatively unknown to us. The single reason behind this decision was that we had planned the dates for refurbishment as the treatment room would be out of use for 2 weeks and our usual supplier had a waiting time of over 3 months, which didn’t work with our dates.

Unfortunately, we have had various problems with the new chair, which thankfully the supplier has agreed to take back and it means planning a replacement. The immediate decision was to revert back to our preferred supplier.

Many of our patients have to wait a significant amount of time for their next dental visit with us and for NHS appointments this can currently be over 6 weeks.

There are many reasons for this and in this video, Brightside Dental’s principal dentist Ketan Shah discusses the issue further.

One of the single biggest issues is that we lose an average of over 50 hours of clinical time due to missed appointments or late cancellations that mean we cannot offer these times to other patients. This amounts to losing more than 1 treatment room per month, which is very significant!

We take deposits for appointments as practice policy to secure bookings and to try and help reduce the issue of failed appointments. Unfortunately, under NHS regulations we are unable to charge for missed appointments and the only option we have is to no longer see a patient under the NHS if there are repeated missed appointments or late cancellations.

Constantia had white patches on her front teeth for many years and it bothered her when speaking and smiling . She had looked into what could be done about the problem. She was told about Icon treatment by another dentist but they did not offer this treatment.

Click below to see Constantia share her story and how delighted she was with the result:

She found Brightside Dental online and came to see us based on positive reviews from other patients and from seeing results we have been able to achieve for others who have had similar treatment.

For more information about Icon treatment and examples of treatment outcomes, visit : https://www.brightsidedental.co.uk/decay-dentists-bounds-green.html or give us a call on 020 88884401.

Over the past few months we have gone through two phases of refurbishment work within the practice. The first part was to have air conditioning installed throughout the practice. Fortunately, we timed this just right for it to be ready for the hot weather during the summer.

The second phase has just been completed, whereby we have had the fourth and final one of our treatment rooms fully refurbished. Click the link to see Brightside’s principal dentist speak about it further and show you the new room : https://youtu.be/3264LVcNoqU

The work involved a significant amount of planning as well as disruption within the practice whilst being carried out but has definitely been worth it. We have had great feedback from patients we have seen since completion of the work and it’s so much more a nicer environment for our team to work in. We also have the latest equipment and technology available which means we can provide an even better and more efficient service to our patients.

At Brightside, our aim is to constantly improve on what we do. We look forward to seeing you soon at the practice and welcome your opinion on what we have done and any further improvements we could make in the future.

William had been unhappy with his smile for a long time and when we first discussed his issues and what he would ideally like to achieve, we were both unsure if that would be realistic.

His main concerns were with the way his upper front teeth looked and he had fillings on the upper front teeth which he was not happy with.

After detailed discussions and treatment planning, William opted for teeth straightening with fixed cosmetic braces. Once the teeth were straightened and retainers placed to help prevent any unwanted movement, a course of teeth whitening was carried out using Enlighten premium whitening and finally the fillings on the two upper front teeth were replaced with composite bonding to improve on the shape and colour to match the rest of Williams new smile.

The treatment went very well and took around 18 months in total. Appointments were planned around Williams busy and often unsociable hours work schedule.

If you would like to find out how we can help improve your smile, give us a call on 020 88884401.

Dentists have been urging the government to reduce and ideally ban sugar in school meals, snacks and vending machines in order to reduce the epidemic of increasing levels of tooth decay in children.

There was a recent BBC News article published on this subject https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49348932 and Brightside Dental’s Principal dentist Ketan discusses the issue further here : https://youtu.be/Q5wZt0ad0ng

From a dental point of view, we focus on prevention and dental decay is one of the few preventable diseases, however is the single biggest reason hospital admissions and general anaesthetics in children.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May stated plans to improve oral health. We will need to see whether these claims are followed through, however at Brightside Dental, along with many other dental professionals, we will continue our mission to educate our patients and do our best to help reduce the level of dental decay in our patients.

For any further help or advice, give us a call on 020 88884401.