The world is your oyster

Laura Horton began her career in 1996 as a dental nurse but today is an inspiring business owner and consultant. In the intervening years, Laura developed a passion for – and in-depth knowledge of – the dental industry. As a treatment coordinator (TCO), she created the strong foundations on which she built her business idea: to educate dental practices and their teams on the very real need for inclusion of the TCO role.

The GDC standards make it very clear to dentists what is expected of them from the Consent and Communication standards 2 and 3. However, it is very hard for dentists to fulfil all requirements when they have time pressures, inadequate bookings and patients who need a different level of communication. Dentists who have complex cases to plan need time to do this and need even more time to communicate all of the options and stages of treatment. Implant dentistry, for example, is one aspect where the treatment plan can change at any time and you need someone helping to support the dentists with the communication and consent processes to the patient.