Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Neal Mehta
Episode Release Date: Monday 2 September 2024
Andy & Chris (00:01.174)
Episode 150 or 60 something now, which is amazing. Yeah, it’s brilliant. Isn’t it? I love it. And I’ll tell you what everyone Every guest is interesting There’s always a story to tell and it’s funny isn’t it because when when we started doing these it’s the business of dentistry podcast So I think we kind of thought quite hard about well, where does the business bit fit in? But it naturally just falls out of the conversations doesn’t it? I think it’s that thing isn’t it people of business and business of people most of people we talk to
Actually probably thinking about it. Most of them are set up their own things or they’re the founder. So therefore They are their business and there’s a correlation between the individuals that we see and individuals We talk about the businesses they run which is a nice fit because we have a founder joining us today We’ve got dr. Neil meta joining us a dentist but also founder of locum loop the innovative Recruitment app which will come on to later. I’m excited to find out more about that. Welcome Neil. Hey, dude. Yeah, welcome
Neal (00:58.146)
Fine, thank you. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Chris, for inviting me. Great to be here.
Andy & Chris (01:02.09)
No, not at all.
Now I’m looking forward to it. It’s almost a bit ethereal with the sunlight behind it. Yeah, shining in a year. Yeah, so if you’re listening to this as a podcast, you can’t see it, but Neil has this beautiful summer sunlight coming through the window behind him. So yeah, in the UK, It’s looking good, though. It’s looking good. So to start with, can we just roll back to your childhood to get a sense of who you are? What did family look like for the young Neil?
Neal (01:18.018)
Very rare, very rare hit. Gotta get in it.
Neal (01:33.102)
So family, well, was started off with how I got into dentistry. Do you want to start with that? Or before then, that’s interesting.
Andy & Chris (01:42.44)
No, before then. No, before, before. Yeah, yeah. no, I bet you it is. See, the fact you skirted over that nil makes me think, no We’ll go dig it. We now find he’s like a clubber, international hockey player or something.
Neal (01:54.602)
I just want to hear about that.
No, childhood was relatively normal. I mean, as in went to school around North West London from primary. Yeah, North West London around Northwood area. So not central London, but on the outskirts. yeah.
Andy & Chris (02:09.206)
I was going say, where were you brought up?
Andy & Chris (02:13.566)
okay. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so you went to either haberdashers or merchant tailors or harrow See no local knowledge you see a lot of my friends went to have so it’s quite interesting. Yeah
Neal (02:23.778)
went to have.
That was good. I don’t like how this plays.
Neal (02:33.068)
So I went to Merchant Haley’s Prep then moved on to HABS. Well, was Northwood Prep back then. yeah, steady progression from one to the other. Always had work instilled into me from a young age and obviously going to those type of schools, I think it was the norm there. So natural progression from that. I actually went to HABS.
Andy & Chris (02:36.063)
-huh.
Andy & Chris (02:54.904)
-huh.
Neal (03:01.326)
didn’t actually, they predicted me worse grades than what I got in my actual AS levels at the time. So I had to move to college at 17 because they actually predicted me the correct grades, I guess, and got into dental school from there. so, yeah, so when…
Andy & Chris (03:09.73)
Okay. Well done.
Andy & Chris (03:19.786)
I will.
Andy & Chris (03:24.539)
okay.
Neal (03:27.758)
Studied hard, worked hard, back from there to getting into denture, I went to Cardiff Uni and was there from 2009, 2009, yeah not 19, 2009. Yeah, and qualified in 2014.
Andy & Chris (03:34.676)
Right, I was going to ask where you went.
Andy & Chris (03:42.422)
19. You’ve done very well, sir. You’ve knocked the decade off yourself.
Andy & Chris (03:50.663)
Your father’s a dentist, was that a big influence in you choosing dentistry?
Neal (03:54.614)
Yeah, I guess so. I think, you know, that was a big influence. was an inspiration to me. think I always saw him as a kind of a figure that had a stable life. We had enough to afford what we needed to send us to private school. So I think it was instilled in me from a young age. kind of thought, I was thinking a little bit beyond my years in terms of thinking, OK, well, I want to have a stable career.
Andy & Chris (04:06.66)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (04:10.858)
Yeah.
Neal (04:23.618)
be able to provide, make sure I don’t need to worry about finance. Obviously it comes at a cost of hard work, but I think I saw that life and I kind of wanted that. I wanted more as well, obviously, we all want more. Yeah, actually my wife was always saying that, she said, you’re thinking about random things when you were young. I was in the park with my friends and we were thinking about, yeah, but.
Andy & Chris (04:29.814)
Show.
Andy & Chris (04:34.684)
Mm -hmm. was only eight at the time
Andy & Chris (04:47.222)
But you say the thing about hard work, Neil. I think the bit that people miss is everything’s hard work. I’m sure the person stacking shelves in a supermarket, they are working hard. So I don’t think anything isn’t hard work. I think it’s just the direction you go in. And I think particularly for younger people, it’s having a mentor, parents, whatever, to point you in the direction where you have a lucrative career ahead of you.
Neal (04:55.362)
Yeah!
Neal (05:16.704)
Yeah, I like the police way.
Andy & Chris (05:17.015)
I just had this fantastic image of Neil in a park on his bike, sitting there thinking about his pension.
Neal (05:22.83)
Yeah, pretty much. But I think my dad was quite a serious character in that sense. He was very work orientated. So a lot of the discussions were around work, even though I wasn’t involved in his work at eight. So, you know, at that stage, was just naturally, I was kind of taking it in from that age. And I thought, you know, this is something where I can do something clinical, help
Andy & Chris (05:33.86)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (05:38.26)
Right, okay.
Neal (05:49.912)
Patients, I guess, you is part of it. But also the main thing at that stage was I can run my own practice and I can have the independence and I can yet be with dad and help him potentially. But that was a long way away, but also have my own place and build it up and explore that route. So I thought it gave me the flexibility to have two kind of avenues where you have number one was business for me always. It was always that was my priority. Secondary was clinical.
Andy & Chris (05:50.782)
Mmm. Yep.
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (06:04.65)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Andy & Chris (06:11.435)
Mm.
Neal (06:20.014)
And hence why I chose a profession, I guess.
Andy & Chris (06:24.318)
It’s really interesting, it, that you sort of end up with that, I know we’d taken a mickey out of you for learning about your pension when you’re right, but it’s that sort of osmosis thing, isn’t it? The fact of if you’re surrounded by it, it just becomes part of you and your thought process. It’s fascinating. So if we go the other way then, Neil, you obviously took inspiration from your father and your dentist. Would you recommend dentistry to your kids?
Neal (06:51.234)
Yes, I would, maybe not in this country with the tax, but yeah. But I don’t know. Yeah, no, I think I would. think vocational degrees, vocational professions are a good way forward. Obviously you can go into other things and they could be hugely beneficial, but I think it is a good avenue to make sure you have that stability and also with a clear progression and also the earning potential as well. So I think it is a good profession.
Andy & Chris (06:56.707)
Ha
Andy & Chris (07:08.747)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (07:17.343)
Yeah.
Neal (07:20.236)
and I would encourage them.
Andy & Chris (07:22.431)
Is your wife a dentist or medical or anything or how did you meet? HR.
Neal (07:24.974)
No, she’s in HR. So I’ve met her in Poland. Yeah, when I was 20. Yeah. Yes, I was. was integrating when I was 20. I remember we did long distance five years from, yeah. And then she finally made the move. Yes, she is. She is. So she was studying university and her masters and then didn’t want to move.
Andy & Chris (07:30.57)
You met her in Poland? What on holiday or something? wow!
Andy & Chris (07:42.24)
well.
Is she Polish? okay, right, right, right.
Neal (07:55.095)
and then I proposed to her and then she said, okay, well, if this is gonna work, one of us is gonna move an Iowanspeak.
Andy & Chris (08:00.148)
We probably have to live in the same country.
Neal (08:02.786)
That probably would be a good idea. But we made it work for many years.
Andy & Chris (08:09.474)
I wonder whether the world’s changing now. It’s not that long ago, but now with dating apps and everything else whether that kind of
You know, interrailing, meeting somebody in that situation, that’s becoming less common than it would have been 20, 30 years ago, where you met somebody on holiday or in a bar or in a club or wherever it might be, whereas now it’s become a very digital thing. It’s nice to hear that that kind of experience is still out there. And that you made it, you know, and that you kept it going for five years. mean, that’s a long old…
Neal (08:26.424)
Yeah.
Neal (08:41.646)
was 21, something like that when we started. Yeah, something like that. I can’t remember. been long. We’ve been married seven years. So that’s it. But together a long time.
Andy & Chris (08:51.094)
Brilliant. So married seven years, dentist for 10 years, you also an FD trainer for six years. So I’m interested, based on what you saw as an FD trainer, what you learned at dental school.
Neal (08:57.932)
Yes.
Andy & Chris (09:07.062)
Is there something missing today? What are the younger dentists coming out looking like compared to when you qualified? okay, so it’s only 10 years, but it’s still a 10 year period. make really good notes. Yeah, are you seeing a difference in the young dentist coming out of school today to how you graduated?
Neal (09:24.768)
I think, you know, obviously less clinical experience. It’s just naturally just the way they coming out with the less and less clinical experience. And it varies quite a lot between universities for some reason. I don’t know why, but it seems to you tend to find the London universities have less experience probably because of the number of patients per student. But in general, you find that whereas you see Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff,
Andy & Chris (09:29.162)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (09:37.396)
Yeah, does it. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (09:48.042)
Yep.
Neal (09:54.754)
Liverpool having more experience in general. But yeah, I think the main thing is they come in with this kind of almost blinkered appearance of what dentistry should look like and how it is in reality and who they’re being taught by and the fact that they just want to practice clinically as they’ve done at university.
So I think, you know, things, things are different in different in terms of clinical, but also I think everyone still says the same thing. We had no idea about the business side and HS private side. So they come in and actually that’s one thing that I spend a lot of time with all my FTS. I say, yeah, you’ve got to come in as a clinician, but you’ve also got to understand that when you’re doing it, understand what are you doing with the NHS? What are you, what can you do privately as well? And then.
Andy & Chris (10:32.277)
Hmm.
Mm.
Andy & Chris (10:50.123)
Yeah.
Neal (10:51.406)
when you go to becoming an associate, are 10 steps ahead of everyone else because of the that you understand what it’s about. I think I had, you my dad was predominantly, he did private work, but predominantly the practice was an HS run. We managed to, you know, convert it into private as a way it’s going kind of ahead with a lot of practices. But that was always when I joined, I was like, dad, we’ve got to change things up, you know?
Andy & Chris (10:57.438)
Yeah, for sure.
Andy & Chris (11:15.018)
Mm
Andy & Chris (11:19.336)
Hmm
Neal (11:19.98)
running it well, really well, good staff, everything, but we’ve got to increase our private potential because it’s there, the patients are there. We’re in Harlow. I mean, one of the practices in Harlow, that’s where dad’s place is. And when I joined and became a partner, said, okay, I don’t want to just join as a son who just sits and works and such, you know, I’ve got to increase revenue for the place in order to make sure that, you know, I’m worth my role. So.
Andy & Chris (11:27.728)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (11:32.244)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (11:40.842)
Yeah.
Neal (11:48.354)
then it was like, okay, what else can we do? How can we explore private avenues and slowly, slowly increasing different types of specialties or even hygiene roles? We didn’t have a hygienist there before, for example. So just adding things in, simple things, but also I think the beauty of dentistry is that almost running a dental practice, if you add a service in an industry,
Andy & Chris (11:53.621)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (12:04.308)
Mmm, well.
Neal (12:17.186)
with very little cost upfront, you can have a huge revenue. Whereas with most other businesses, you should add a lot of capital in order to increase revenue. Whereas in a gentle practice, you can actually spend relatively little amount and get a huge increase in revenue from something very simple. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. You just can stop it. If it works, great.
Andy & Chris (12:21.204)
Yeah. Mm. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (12:32.629)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (12:36.564)
Yeah. It’s not bankruptcy territory. No, it’s not. But it does sound very much like you, you happen to be a dentist, but it’s business that drives you. You could have gone into accountancy or an architect or a lawyer, but you just still always been looking at the business side of whichever profession you were in.
Neal (12:56.663)
Yeah, that was always my passion, yeah.
Andy & Chris (12:58.766)
You were saying about the younger dentists as they qualify. On the flip side to it, are there things that they’re coming out with that you didn’t have when you qualified? Is there an upside or a benefit that’s coming out of dental school that wasn’t there before? Fear. Sorry, sorry.
Neal (13:16.622)
was about to say that Chris, you took the word out. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s the fear element as well. I think that’s it, but I don’t think there’s anything extra they’ve been given. I think they all seem pretty similar when they come out. All think they’re amazing extractions, but then when they take it, they’ve only taken out like a grade three mobile, which is probably the most
Andy & Chris (13:28.766)
Right, yeah.
Neal (13:45.888)
mobile to possible in a mouth and then you’re like, you know how to take our route? And they’re like, no, we hadn’t had to do that. So I was like, you’re probably that’s something you’re going to struggle with. so, yeah, no, in general, I just don’t think they have. I don’t think there’s much else that uni gives that they else that they give than they did in my time, I guess. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (14:03.506)
Right, yeah.
Andy & Chris (14:07.326)
That practical thing is amazing. We’ve had a few guys who sort of said to us, know, exactly really what you said, you know, they’ll come along and they can do an extraction on an easy tooth, but give them something out there like, well, I’ve never done one of those before, or I’ve never done a root filling on here or whatever. And I suppose as a non -clinician, think, so what have they?
taught them. Why have they not taught them to do these things? It’s mad, isn’t it? Because you’re training them now, you’re educating them. I almost felt that FD was sort of like the idea was that you rub the rough edges off it and you turned it into a pearl of a dentist. the more it sounds as an FD, you’re sort of a quasi practical clinical trainer, aren’t you? Because you’re having to…
Neal (14:29.11)
Exactly. Exactly.
Neal (14:52.918)
I think you’re almost like you’re basically their university clinical because you’re almost their supervisor because the thing is you should really be there. fully qualified. You should really be helping them with the basics, like the basics, but the harder stuff. Whereas you’re helping them from start to finish almost with the procedure. They’re asking you, is the cavity look okay? Have I removed all the decay? Have I done this? It’s like from start to finish.
Andy & Chris (14:58.815)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (15:06.399)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (15:14.346)
Mm.
Mm. Mm.
It’s almost like they’re coming out with all the theory, but none of the practical experience, which is a shame, isn’t it? It is a shame. So you in partnership with your father, you’re also a partnership in another practice as well. What was, your brother. Is that a different practice? you’ve got one with your brother, one with your father.
Neal (15:35.662)
with my brother. Yeah. Yes. So we have one practice where we’re partners with my dad. So my brother, myself, my dad, and the other practices, we bought that in 2015 with my brother. So qualified and literally bought the practice with my brother very soon after. He’s three years older than me. So we…
It was kind of, we were looking at it, practiced in London, they were very expensive. So we thought, you know, we can’t afford that much at that time. So we were like, okay, well, let’s look out, found Salisbury, random kind of location because everyone asked Salisbury, live in Northwest London. And it was just, we saw potential in the practice, but yeah, I mean, in hindsight, was very like looking at, we obviously.
Andy & Chris (16:04.682)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (16:14.216)
Yeah, sauce spray. That’s interesting.
Neal (16:29.89)
had to build it up, but in hindsight, was a big risk we took because the principal that we bought for all was unfortunately ill for about three or four years, run with locums for that period of time. And so the patient list had been whittled down and also the staff, there was a lot of problems with staff, hence locum loop and all that. So we were relying on high turnaround of staff.
Andy & Chris (16:42.336)
Alright.
Andy & Chris (16:51.317)
Bye.
Neal (16:57.854)
agency staff at that time as well and
Andy & Chris (16:59.552)
Hmm hard to build culture isn’t it when there’s all that? yeah
Neal (17:03.695)
actually almost more difficult than a squat, I feel, because you’re actually inheriting bad culture. And if you inherit bad culture, you can’t actually, it’s more difficult in that, in that stage than actually, I feel, maybe I’m saying it after 10 years, that that’s the case. But I do feel now in hindsight, I actually, probably running a squat and making your own can sometimes in many ways, you know, inherit all the problems from a previous practice or
Andy & Chris (17:06.452)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (17:10.442)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (17:16.991)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (17:27.936)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You start with a blank canvas. You create it as you want to. Did you bounce around much as an associate before getting into business ownership?
Neal (17:32.801)
something like this.
Neal (17:38.494)
I was an associate at my FD practice for about a year or so whilst I was kind of between purchase the practice, DAS practice, you know, so I was in the process of kind of doing a bit of associate work at that time. But I learned a lot from my principal even in that short period. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (17:57.034)
But yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s interesting. We do some work with Samir Patel from Eleven Dental and he says how young dentists should move around, you know, get two, three, four different jobs. It’s interesting you saying that you learned a lot from that practice. And I think sometimes that people get very comfortable in one place. They don’t move and then they don’t necessarily get that broad range of experience that others have. Yeah, definitely.
Neal (18:26.19)
No, think it was just the way, not just I wanted to progress, I think my brother was a bit ahead of me. And I just had a clear vision of what I wanted, but I think hugely beneficial to do that.
Andy & Chris (18:32.715)
Hmm.
Neal (18:40.62)
I think that is the right way to do it. If I kind of went through the traditional route of no family in the business, I would have done probably a couple of years at least, and seeing how things were run, and then picking out the best qualities of every single practice and implementing into my own essentially.
Andy & Chris (18:54.089)
Yeah. Yeah. Any other dentists in the family that you can get into partnership with or?
Neal (19:00.846)
No, no, one. Just a lot of dentists in the family. We’ve got, I tend 10 first cousins on my dad’s side and seven are dentists. Yeah, so, yes. Yes, bloody boring. All the wives are just like, what the hell?
Andy & Chris (19:11.04)
Wow.
Family gatherings are great. Yeah, Yeah, where your scrubs? So then you make yeah, you also just out of interest do you also you know when you all get together do you just suddenly someone go? I’ll tell you what I had a terrible for extraction or whatever it might be and then everyone else is in It’s like golfers
Neal (19:24.054)
or husband. Ladies is what we are.
Neal (19:38.638)
Sounds familiar, sounds familiar.
Andy & Chris (19:42.87)
When you were talking about Salisbury, you said about the people issues and you glanced over Locum Loop. But about 18 months ago, you started this innovative platform for the recruitment of dental nurses. Was that the spark that lit that flame, your own experience in Salisbury for this new business? Or how did that come about?
Neal (20:03.958)
So I think I always bounced around different ideas of what I could do or expand or thought, it, you and I just, it wasn’t, yes, partly Salisbury, but partly, okay, well, why am I getting such high bills from these agencies? And also, yeah, I understand that there is a reason why the bills are high because, you know, they’ve got to pay employed staff and, you know, they’ve got their costs as well.
Andy & Chris (20:21.331)
Mm.
Neal (20:31.892)
So we were relying quite heavily on agency at some, at some periods and our turnover or revenue at that point wasn’t that great. So running a practice or surgery almost was nonsensical at times by hiring your agency, a nurse plus running the practice. I was thinking, well, there has to be a better way to do this because I’m phoning the agency and back in that time we were doing, my brother and I were doing all the management together.
Andy & Chris (20:40.672)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (20:47.381)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (20:54.986)
Hmm.
Neal (21:00.75)
So we were, we didn’t have a manager at time. So ringing the agency saying, can you come in or scrambling to the phone at like 6 a or like 10 p our nurse saying we’re So I thought, you know, there has to be a much better way of doing this in terms of having a platform or an app that can connect nurses directly to practices at a much more cost effective rate where we can, I always believe in
Andy & Chris (21:19.987)
Mm.
Neal (21:30.606)
you know, being fair on both sides. So nurses get paid fairly, but also it’s benefits of practice as well. So I didn’t, want it to be a win -win situation. long story short, we launched about 18 months ago, but we built, took about three years to build it in order to, or two years, two and a half years or so to build the platform. So I was doing it in between work and you know, business and everything. So, but spent a long, long time to ensure that
Andy & Chris (21:33.994)
Mm -hmm.
Andy & Chris (21:52.679)
Mm. Yeah.
Neal (22:00.386)
we had some clear USPs, some clear differences to the traditional agencies. And we could be fully automated from start to finish, no semi -automation where you can book a nurse through the platform, but then you have to pay them via a back transfer. So we wanted from start to finish booking set rates, to nurse going into the time sheets, to payments also automated via Stripe.
Andy & Chris (22:16.725)
Yeah.
Neal (22:30.058)
invoicing, automated, all of that from start to finish. So there’s no headache from a practice principle point of view or manager point of view. Yeah, so I mean, I think obviously that came with time and the discussions we had over the two and a half years or so about how we can make it the best platform possible. Yeah, so.
Andy & Chris (22:36.276)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (22:44.601)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (22:53.098)
And I imagine one of the challenges with that as well is that the nature of that world, it keeps evolving and developing so quickly. At some point, you’ve got to break the pencil and say, right, we’re now going to go with it because there’s always another integration. There’s always another, a little bolt on. There’s always another improvement coming in. The risk is it just becomes one of those projects that just rolls and rolls and you never actually turn it into something which is commercial.
Neal (23:17.39)
Yeah, I think that’s why, you know, that’s, what, you hear, I think it’s like 5 % of startups actually succeed or something, 5 % because it is, it is kind of being knocked down and then having to get yourself up and say, okay, well, it’s not like dentistry, you buy a practice, you would hope that it would at least remain stable or succeed. And that’s why I look at it. And when people say tech valuations so high, I now understand why. Before I was
Andy & Chris (23:24.532)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (23:31.243)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (23:36.458)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (23:45.588)
Starting things is hard. Buying something that’s established, particularly in a dental practice context, if you just keep doing what’s been done before, as you said, you’ll kind of get the same. You’ll be all right. Yeah. But actually literally having an empty space and starting from scratch, as you found with your recruitment business, it’s not easy. And that’s why people pay significant premiums for existing businesses. Glad we got out of recruitment, basically. Yes. Obviously a wise business decision by us.
Neal (24:14.904)
Yeah, I think, you know, with us, the beauty is we’re not really, we are recruitment as kind of slightly like recruitment, but we’re a connecting platform. We’re almost like, would, the best way to describe us like Uber, our nurses self -employed, the practice pays directly into a pot that goes into the nurses separate and hours separate. So it’s in a way we don’t need to deal with the headache of employment and employment law, but
Andy & Chris (24:40.97)
Mm. Mm.
Neal (24:43.982)
in order to even just launch the platform. My God, we had so many discussions with lawyers about, you know, we need to make sure we’re adhering to regulations and these nurses aren’t self -employed and we can actually do what we’re doing. So getting to that stage even to just launch was very difficult, not just the actual platform, we’re a web app, non -app, but was very difficult in itself. But, you know, we got there in the end, launched about 18 months ago, I mean, growing ever since.
Andy & Chris (24:52.522)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (25:01.684)
Mmm. Mmm.
Andy & Chris (25:13.11)
Brilliant.
Neal (25:15.65)
but it’s just the mentality as well of dentists and dental practice owners and they’re stuck in their ways. So it’s just converting that takes time, but we’re going in a really exponential way. But it takes time with any business, I guess.
Andy & Chris (25:21.204)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (25:33.698)
And obviously, so there’s also a of a double whammy for dentistry with Brexit and COVID, in that we had people leave the profession, some people left the country. So there was that kind of real pinch point on recruitment. So your solution kind of came out after that. But is the recruitment of specifically nurses, is it getting better or worse? Are practices still scrambling around to try to find the people that they need?
Neal (26:01.92)
Yeah, they still are. mean, the need for locums is massive. In traditional light, traditionally, would say, in pharmacy, and especially pharmacy, would say, and even in NHS hospitals, they’re using them on a much wider scale, but nursing itself, in itself, we currently only supply nurses, is huge. The potential is huge. We’ve got
the supply, we see it on a daily basis where we’re getting practices join and posting jobs. So like say we’re getting a new practice sign up, getting jobs posted for the next four months and maybe 15 jobs or 20 jobs. So then actually I think what it is is that people go, because agencies have kind of ruled the locum way of doing things in the dental industry.
Andy & Chris (26:59.381)
Mm -hmm.
Neal (27:00.462)
And dentistry is slightly behind, I would say, other professions. And people aren’t used to change or integrating tech into their practices or thinking, am I going to get a nurse with this or is it going to work? being generally a little bit skeptical, you tend to find a bit of resistance. But once someone uses you, we’ve got a 90 %
Andy & Chris (27:10.101)
Mm
Andy & Chris (27:20.031)
Mm.
Neal (27:26.158)
our fill rate, do our charts is 90 % plus we’re actually at like 92 % and that’s UK wide. So our fill rate is really high, but it’s just convincing that practice to post their first job. And then once you’ve done it, you’re kind of got them in for hopefully for life or for however long. Locum is almost like a dirty word I will always say because practice industry, you know,
Andy & Chris (27:44.554)
Hmm. Yeah.
Hahaha.
Neal (27:53.74)
you would find that a of principals are like, no, no, no, I don’t need locums. Why would I need locum? I’m like, well, it’s okay. Everyone needs it. It doesn’t matter. know, my staff are, know, when you speak to practice, just, doesn’t exactly, this is what, what I tried to say. It’s like typical in pharmacy. It’s typical in other industries, but you know, they just see it as they can’t run and retain staff. Whereas, you know, if you can actually, you know, have a locum at a cost effective rate,
Andy & Chris (28:03.722)
Doesn’t make you a bad boss, does it? No.
Andy & Chris (28:17.557)
Mmm.
Neal (28:22.636)
It’s almost like paying an employee staff, I say, you know, they’re
Andy & Chris (28:26.251)
Is that what it is? There’s embarrassment at the need for a locum because it kind of subtly implies you don’t have a good enough business that people want to say they’re ongoing.
Neal (28:30.606)
There’s a lot of embarrassment.
Neal (28:36.706)
Yes, yes.
Andy & Chris (28:38.474)
Yeah, that’s right. It’ll be an interesting one. it’s thinking if if the legislation changes for labour as in employment today, one, it will be interesting whether there’s a shift, a shift in people looking at locum loop and so much. I might as just have someone self employed and I don’t have to worry about it. They don’t have any rights anyway. It’s an interesting one.
Neal (29:01.836)
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s, that’s, once you work out your PAY, your holiday pay, all of that, you realize that actually having a nurse with us, the nurse is still getting a very good rate, but also the practice is saving with on average, hundred pound more reasonable than an agency per nurse per day. So that’s like a huge saving when you’re looking at corporations, for example.
Andy & Chris (29:27.496)
Significant. That’s a massive sound. So that’s straight to your bottom line, isn’t it?
Neal (29:30.924)
Yeah, it’s it’s that is we are and on weekends even more. I mean, one of the corporates actually said to us that joined us, you are more reasonable than hiring our own nurse weekends. And so we’ve got, you know, so the thing is, nurses are taking the jobs because they have a steady increment in their pay, like their pay scale. So the more they work using the platform, the increments go up. They’ve got complete flexibility over their diary.
Andy & Chris (29:41.824)
Wow.
Andy & Chris (29:56.939)
Hmm.
Neal (30:00.8)
and we’re not forcing them to take any jobs. So they’ve got complete control. Whereas with an agency, forced to take certain jobs in many cases, and you’ve got to travel where they ask, whereas a nurse can choose exactly where and when they want to work.
Andy & Chris (30:04.144)
Mmm. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (30:14.358)
I and because it’s diverse they don’t probably they’re they’re very rarely at the same place for all the time so they can then make sure IR 35 doesn’t knock on their door that’s quite useful isn’t it as well because you’ve got that then flexibility and spread of employer Chris was saying about recruitment as I retention as well whilst your your businesses your locum supplying locums
Neal (30:27.756)
Yes.
Andy & Chris (30:42.894)
Is there still an ongoing recruitment issue within dentistry? Are you seeing an increased flow of nurses wanting to work in the style that you can offer them, as opposed to committing to a practice and staying there on one site long term? Are we seeing a shift in terms of how nurses in the UK work?
Neal (31:02.53)
think it’s just, I would say there is a slight shift because naturally we’ve got nurses signing up to the platform every day. We’ve got thousands of nurses, not just, you know, thousands they’re signing up. So it obviously shows that they’re shifting more towards that type of behavior.
Andy & Chris (31:18.933)
Hmm.
Neal (31:21.748)
And yeah, I would say the gen is slightly a generational thing as well. People want more flexibility, short kind of have work when they want to work rather than employed or have a mix of employment and self -employment. So it gives them that flexibility. And I think in general, I mean, I was speaking to one of my nurses today and you know, she was saying that.
Andy & Chris (31:31.093)
Yeah.
Neal (31:46.356)
She works with us one day with an agency and with us on an employed basis for three days. And she said, there’s one practice that is a corporate practice that has no nurses currently. And, you know, they’re using like five locums a day. So we’re just, yeah, it’s…
Andy & Chris (32:09.802)
The hits of their bottom line is massive, isn’t it?
Neal (32:12.61)
Yeah, the thing is, but the thing is also talking to corporates and we’ve had some discussions with corporates as well. And we’re in a position where we’re saying to them, you’re going to save this much money and this is the ease. And these are the testimonials of people that are actually using our platform, but not in the corporate groups that we have on board. But I think the problem is, the shift, it’s the mentality. It’s, we’ve got this red tape or we’ve got this or.
Andy & Chris (32:40.788)
Mmm.
Neal (32:41.538)
We’ve got this, that’s important, but everyone’s thinking about increasing revenue. No one’s thinking about saving money. find they’re always thinking, how can we add a composite bonding course to everyone rather than why don’t we just save some money here or cut budget here or, have a more cost effective solution.
Andy & Chris (32:47.176)
No. Yep.
Andy & Chris (32:52.735)
Mm -hmm.
Andy & Chris (32:56.44)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think also, think sometimes in large organisations, it’s getting through to the right person that sees it through the right lens. Because I guess if you’re speaking to HR people where they have an HR function and they’re set up for managing people and effectively you’re going to take that all away from them and it’s going to be streamlined and managed and it’s automated and simplified. Anyone who’s sitting in HR department might, from a selfish point of view, see this as bad news because they’re not really needed. So it’s getting to a stage in a
business where it’s the people that are understanding the wider business benefits of this and the improved efficiency. It reminds me of the NHS. Do remember the guy when we used to do it and we never, we never were on the network, but there was, you had the network approved people, which is like, you know, locum loop. And then you have the off network people if you can’t get anyone. And it’s almost like they need to adapt that adopt that attitude that says, look, you know, we’re not, we’re not telling you, you don’t have to use
it but try this first and if then you can go to your then you can spend more money
Neal (34:04.398)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, 100%. I think, you know, and also the fact that if they kind of shift towards using us, they find that it’s actually what we found whenever we’ve got a few corporates on board. And we find that they say, it’s much easier to track things because the problem with locums is you get, 30 different agencies, 30 different bills every month, they’re compiling, get your end of year accounts and you’re like,
Andy & Chris (34:31.439)
Mm -mm. Yeah.
Neal (34:33.972)
not going to swear, yeah, they’re like, yeah. And yeah, they’re just, so they don’t look at it on monthly basis, but if they’re kind of using someone like us on the majority of their jobs, they can do reports, they can have a look at jobs in advance, look at jobs on a month by month basis as well.
Andy & Chris (34:35.651)
The reconciliation is a pain,
Andy & Chris (34:52.212)
But this is the hidden cost of managing people, isn’t it? It’s not just what’s the hourly rate. That’s such a binary basic question.
Well, what’s the out of rate? What’s the out of rate? It costs more. We won’t do it. was like, well, like you say, what about the year end reconciliation of having bundles of papers coming in from lots of different agencies and having to allocate those to particular practices so you can find out what the cost center and the profit was per site. Da da da da da. Yeah. Once you multiply up the work that goes with that, you can see having a streamlined system is so much better in so many ways. And also from a reporting and accountability point of view. Yes, that’s great.
Neal (35:29.73)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (35:30.67)
It’s great. It sounds brilliant. sounds brilliant. You’re clearly very entrepreneurial in how you steamed into what was your dad’s practice with your big ideas and what you’re doing with with Locan Loop. What would you distill down as the key skill you need for entrepreneurial success?
Neal (35:51.694)
I would say, listen to people, listen to your team, listen to your nurses, listen to your patients, but especially your nurses actually. and you, and you’re, I would say, take it in, evaluate, see what point use them as well. for their skillset, because they’re better at a lot of things than you are. So I would say.
Team, like management of your team is the number one most important thing, 100%. You’ve got to get them on your side. But I also, I love it personally. I’m generally quite a social guy. and also I want to make sure they’re happy at work. And it gives me pleasure to see them, you know, wanting to come to work and enjoying the environment and all of that and feeling safe in the environment. So I’d say, yeah, make sure a team’s on your side, but look after them well.
Andy & Chris (36:33.216)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (36:36.672)
Hmm.
Neal (36:47.738)
and do it as a genuine human rather than doing it to keep them. just do it as you want to be, treat them as you want to be treated and learn from them as well. so I would say that’s number one, always keep your team on your side. Yeah. And just always expanding every month. Like even if it’s one simple idea, it’s just, I want to change the phone lines in the practice to make sure that people are actually picking up the phone rather than it going to voicemail.
Andy & Chris (36:54.258)
Mmm. Yeah.
Neal (37:17.634)
make sure the cancellation policy is fine. All these little bits add up and that essentially is going to increase your revenue at the end of it. Because it’s not just that one thing, it’s those hundreds of things that add up over a long, long period of time, which will then have the end result. And that’s what it is, what people fail to understand. Go in, do their work, run the practice, don’t really think about much else.
Andy & Chris (37:24.989)
Mm -hmm.
Andy & Chris (37:31.914)
Yeah.
Neal (37:46.702)
Think about composite bonding where they may get one patient a month rather than just changing the phone lines. They may pay 150 quid a month, but they may pick up a hundred more calls, which may generate them 30 more grand a month. it’s just simple things, just learning and listening to people like you, Andy, I don’t know, Chris as well, but you know, listening to entrepreneurs like you who have a lot more experience than myself.
Andy & Chris (37:59.526)
Mm. Mm -mm. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (38:06.432)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (38:15.071)
Hmm.
Neal (38:16.226)
the industry knowledge and getting that and just digesting it and trying to implement it.
Andy & Chris (38:20.682)
Yeah, it’s funny what you say about those small improvements. We have a thing in our business about one percenters and we constantly encourage our team to look for little one percent improvements for the point that you raise, which is those one percents.
They compound over time. But also it’s rare you ever find a business that just does one thing so incredibly well. It’s normally a real patchwork quilt of lots of small things altogether that make it quite magical. Stagnate and die. Yeah. And also I think if you’re, if you’re looking for 1 % as that makes it very hard for your competition because they can’t just watch what you do and just say, well, we’ll do that. Or that in itself isn’t actually that interesting. It’s that plus
that plus that squared equals the result and that’s where I think the magic is. So think those 1 % are really important.
Neal (39:13.474)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a constant evolution, constant, yeah, like you said, competition, making sure that you’re doing something every, every day, every month, I will try to think, okay, well, what else can we do? What else can we do? So it can be something really tiny. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (39:28.51)
We have no right to exist. That’s what we always say. No right to exist.
Neal (39:33.418)
It could be something something so minute so small but it makes a big difference like even when I always say when there’s a problem you got to solve it in anything you would do that with a mass problem you would do you’d get a problem you would solve it right whereas in dentistry you get a problem like all these patients are cancelling last minute and it’s really annoying us and They’re rubbish and they’re this and they’re that okay. Well, let’s do something about it. Let’s actually implement something that works
Andy & Chris (40:02.25)
Mm. Mm.
Neal (40:03.218)
and also help us in, or your team are unhappy about something. Okay, let’s sort it out. Let’s actually do something about it. Whereas people just, I would say a lot of principles may, may not, but you know, if you want to be successful, I think you’ve got to just listen and just implement something to solve the problem rather than just saying, it’s a problem. Just leave it. It’ll sort itself out because eventually it’s become a bigger problem and it’s not going to sort itself out.
Andy & Chris (40:27.444)
Hmm. Yeah, yeah, it won’t sort itself out. Yeah, absolutely. Neil, we got to the stage in our episode where we need to ask you a couple of very, very serious questions. Important questions. Very serious questions. So the first question is you’re a fly on the wall in a situation. Where are you and who’s there?
Neal (40:50.464)
And fly on the wall, who’s there? I’ll probably say, that is a serious question. I would probably say Steve Jobs when he released the first iPhone and how that changed the world, basically. Yeah, I think that I would like to see what you’re thinking, what he said.
Andy & Chris (40:52.862)
Yeah, that’s as serious as it gets. Honestly, that’s it.
Andy & Chris (41:10.675)
Yeah
Neal (41:20.172)
and how it became such a revolution really, like how it revolutionized the world.
Andy & Chris (41:20.256)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (41:25.462)
Hmm.
It’s funny, isn’t it today, you know, most people have a smartphone of some sort or other, whether it’s an iPhone or another smartphone, and we just take them for granted. But you’re right. Somebody like Steve Jobs would have had to have sold that idea that we’re going to have this device that’s going to basically provide us with all of our connectivity and so much more. imagine the blank faces. going to spend billions on developing it. Yeah, but it might work. Yeah. And it’s not just convincing other people who are interested in tech.
the finance world and bringing consumers along. So a vision we like that in the very early days, would be a fascinating situation to watch.
Neal (42:05.65)
Not Blackberry, yeah, not Blackberry kind of out of anyone’s hands, literally. And yeah, it’s just pretty much, yeah, overnight. So…
Andy & Chris (42:12.05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and the thing is in the early days, the BlackBerry had the email integration, which the iPhone didn’t have. And the BlackBerry was the thing. you worked and you wanted email to your phone, you had a BlackBerry. And then literally overnight, iPhone got it fixed and BlackBerry. It’s blockbuster. Yeah. Yeah.
Neal (42:37.282)
Yeah, and they didn’t believe in touchpads, they didn’t want to convert, they didn’t want to change. But yeah, think he did an amazing job. I don’t know how he managed to convert everyone literally overnight, using an iPhone.
Andy & Chris (42:41.557)
Yes.
Andy & Chris (42:45.726)
No.
Andy & Chris (42:55.898)
remarkable, remarkable. And our follow up question is if you had the opportunity to meet somebody, who would you like to sit down with and have a conversation? They can’t be dead, obviously.
Neal (43:11.34)
head of these corporates. No, all of them in one room. Yeah, no, I would say either Einstein, because he was a scientist, but also he had a lot more to him. Or someone like Mandela. But I mean, I don’t know how to answer. You know what, I’m not sure. Yeah, but I would say probably Einstein.
Andy & Chris (43:29.511)
Mm -hmm.
Andy & Chris (43:39.144)
It’s hard. Yeah. Yeah.
Neal (43:41.102)
And…
Andy & Chris (43:42.798)
It’s funny with Einstein because we were used to the photograph of him. Yeah, the real mad professor type photographs. And when I saw the film Oppenheimer, it took me by surprise slightly because he’s in the film with a real person and you forget that he actually lived in fairly recent times. And he always seems like this mythical creature from like, you know, he’s always in black and white. think being in black and white makes a big difference. And it kind of took me by surprise. And I sometimes forget that he’s he’s
Neal (44:00.824)
Mm
Neal (44:05.326)
I’m not happy.
Andy & Chris (44:12.642)
you know, fairly recent in our history. But yeah, he’d be a fascinating person. I imagine he’d be quite a hard person as well, because he’s so intelligent, he’d lose you quite quickly. Or me. Or give him a whiskey, or something. I don’t know if he was a drinker. It’d be interesting.
Neal (44:24.547)
Yeah.
Neal (44:29.268)
So no, think it’s hard question, but yeah, probably Einstein. But yeah.
Andy & Chris (44:34.102)
Cool. Well, thank you. Cheers, Neil. That was wonderful. Thank you very much indeed. wish you well with your dentistry and your practices and also your new business, Locumloop, as well. Excited see how that kind of transforms working across dentistry in the years to come.
Neal (44:51.234)
Yeah, no, thank you so much. Thanks so much for inviting me, Chris and Andy.
Andy & Chris (44:54.858)
No, at all. Our pleasure. Not at all. Brilliant. The cocktail. Cheers. Cheers.
Neal (44:58.008)
Take care, have a nice holiday, yeah.
