The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Dental clinics invest £250k in technology
Five Tayside dental practices have made a £250,000 investment that will see them become some of the most digitised surgeries in Scotland.
Two dental practices in Dundee and surgeries in Forfar, Newburgh and Kinross will bring the latest 3D digital inter-oral scanning technology to patients.
Dundee firm First Alba Healthcare, run by husband-and-wife team Dr Rami Sarraf and Dr Ewa Plewa Sarraf, own the practices.
The six-figure new equipment can be used to create braces, retainers, bridges, crowns and other dental appliances.
It creates a full 3D image of the mouth, removing the need to use moulding material.
The new scanning technology carries a lower carbon footprint. Appliances can be made on site, rather than transported back and forth to external labs.
The amount of clinical waste generated in making appliances is also greatly reduced.
First Alba Healthcare employs a team of 45 staff and associates.
The Dundee practices are situated on Dudhope Terrace and Strathmartine Road. With the new equipment at hand, Dr Sarraf is currently undertaking a mass staff training programme.
He said: “We had planned to introduce the technology at each of our five surgeries before Covid-19 struck. We are now able to continue with the full plan to make the business the most digitised dental surgeries in Scotland.
“This technology has been introduced as a result of painstaking research by myself and my wife as to the best equipment to buy for our purposes.”
Dr Sarraf acknowledged that the cost of the new technology was a great deal of money to invest at a challenging time.
He believes it will help improve the experience of visiting the dentist.
“Patients want a fast and reliable service without the need for impressions,” he said. “They are not only unpleasant, but very time consuming to make.
“Young people getting braces find the process of plaster in the mouth very distressing.
“We will be kicking off 2022 on a high.
“That can only be good for dental health in Dundee, Angus, Fife and Kinross.”