Thinking of leaving the NHS? Discover how to protect your income, replace lost benefits and keep patients loyal when going private.
The NHS gives you a safety net so reliable you barely notice it, until it’s gone. Going private can be rewarding, but it can also feel like stepping off a cliff without a parachute.
Everyone talks about the freedom, better earnings and clinical freedom. Fewer mention the diary gaps, the benefits you will lose and the loyal patients who vanish the moment your fees change.
If you want to make the move successfully, you need to look hard at three key areas before you take the leap:
1. Can your practice actually survive without the NHS?
It is not enough to want to leave. You need to know if your practice can stand on its own without NHS support. That means taking a clear-eyed look at your patient list and drilling down into the financials.
How many of your patients are likely to follow you when your fees rise? Are they loyal to you personally, or to the practice or the NHS itself? How long have you been treating them?
Location and demographics matter too. A patient base in a high-income area may cope better with private fees, but even then, not everyone will stay.
This is where experienced providers such as Practice Plan, part of the Wesleyan Group, can help. They will analyse your patient base, run financial models and give you a realistic picture of what is possible. Sometimes the answer will be ‘not yet’ and knowing that before you move can save you a significant amount of stress and expense.
2. Replace the benefits you will lose
The NHS offers far more than patient care. It provides a gold-standard pension, sick pay, death-in-service cover and a level of contractual security that you may not truly value until it is gone. Once you leave, those benefits stay behind. The pension you have built up will remain, but you will no longer be able to contribute to it.
If you move into mixed practice, your contributions could fall sharply, reducing what you may have expected to live on in retirement. Your sick pay and death-in-service benefits will either stop completely or reduce in line with the amount of NHS work you give up.
Without a plan to replace these benefits, your retirement age could rise, your safety net could shrink, and your financial security could be put at risk. Every year you delay, the risks grow and the cost of catching up increases.
If you’re not completely confident about your financial planning, the smartest move could be to speak to a dental specialist financial adviser. They can help safeguard what you’ve built, arrange the right protection and ensure your future stays on course.
3. Stop the patient exodus before it starts
Even the most loyal patients may hesitate when faced with higher fees, especially when household budgets are under pressure. It’s best not to assume they will all follow you just because they value your care.
Offering membership plans and patient finance options can make the switch far easier for them. Breaking costs into smaller monthly payments turns a potentially daunting bill into something more manageable and patients are already used to paying this way for many other services.
Providers such as Practice Plan and Medenta, both part of the wider Wesleyan Group, not only supply these payment solutions, they also train your staff to explain the benefits and handle the regulatory side of financial promotions. Having these systems in place before you move can make a big difference to patient retention.
The bottom line
Going private can transform your career, but it is not a straight swap. It is a complete rebuild of your patient base, your income and your safety net. Plan it properly, and you can enjoy the rewards without the freefall.
At Wesleyan Financial Services, our dental specialist financial advisers understand the financial realities of moving from NHS to private. We work alongside Practice Plan and Medenta to give you the complete picture, combining expert financial guidance, business planning and patient finance solutions.
Together, we can help you decide if now is the right time, what it will cost and how to make it work for you and your practice.
Book a conversation with a dental specialist financial adviser at Wesleyan Financial Services by visiting wesleyan.co.uk/dental or calling 0808 149 9416.
Please note: charges may apply. You will not be charged until you have agreed to the services you require and the associated costs. Learn more at www.wesleyan.co.uk/charges.
This article is sponsored by Wesleyan Financial Services.
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