// Therapist-Led Care
A one day course for practice owners and their dental therapists
Taught from the only fully private therapist-led practice in the UK, using twelve months of real financial and clinical data from a single practice of more than three thousand patients.
Key Details
Venue // The Corn Exchange, 31 Woodmarket, Kelso, with live observation next door at The Gentle Touch
Format // One day, 09:00 to 17:00
CPD // Seven hours verifiable, mapped to GDC development outcomes A, B, C and D
Capacity // Twelve delegates, from up to four practices
Fee // £1,995 per practice
Led by // Dr Amber Aplin BDS MJDF RCS (Eng) PgDip
Why this course exists
Therapist-led care is talked about widely and implemented rarely. Practices that try it stall in the same places: the therapist is booked but underused, the associates quietly hold on to their check-ups, patients are told too late and too little, and nobody has modelled what the freed dentist hours are actually for.
The Gentle Touch moved its entire patient base across and has almost two years of data on the new model. Every clinician in the practice earns more per clinical day than they did before. The principal works fewer clinical hours and earns considerably more. Dentist check-ups have fallen by nearly three quarters, and that released time has gone into high-value restorative work rather than into gaps in the diary.
This model is replicable with the right infrastructure support. The following aspects are transferrable: the appointment structure, the referral criteria the therapists use, the letters and patient communication that transitioned over three thousand patients, the fee model, and the sequence in which to do it all.
This is implementation training rather than an introduction. Delegates leave with a written plan for their own practice, agreed between owner and therapist before they go home.
They also leave with the patient communication letters and patient packs used at The Gentle Touch during its own transition. Those documents are a large part of why the change was so successful, and they mean an attending practice starts from a working set rather than a blank page.
The evidence behind the teaching
One practice in a Scottish market town. More than three thousand patients moved across. Twelve months of data. All figures are 2025 and are stated before the effect of the patient fee increase applied in January 2026.
Four headline figures, as stat tiles:
27.3%
Practice-wide income per clinical day
+44.4%
Principal income per clinical day
72.1%
Fewer dentist check-ups
429 hrs
of dentist time released a year
Income per clinical day, before and after
Income per clinical day is the fairest comparison available, because it is unaffected by differences in working days or working patterns between clinicians.
| Clinician | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amber, principal | £2,351 | £3,394 | +44.4% |
| Associate 1 | £2,117 | £2,714 | +28.2% |
| Associate 2 | £2,570 | £3,110 | +21.0% |
| Associate 3 | £2,487 | £2,929 | +17.8% |
| Practice-wide | +27.3% |
Every clinician earned more per day after the change, whatever their stage on the model. The practice-wide figure is the honest one to plan against, and it is still rising: only the principal’s diary is mature at twelve months. Two associates were twelve months into a growing diary and the third was nine months in, building a list from scratch.
The shift into high-value work
Practice-wide onlay production rose from 453 to 522, an increase of 23.6% per clinical day. By clinician: Amber up 27.8%, Associate 1 up 22.1%, Associate 2 up 53.8%, Associate 3 up 7.2% at nine months in and still building a list.
When clinical time is released, high-value work rises disproportionately. That is the mechanism the financial results rest on.
The capacity released
Dentist check-ups fell from 2,380 to 664. That is 1,716 appointments, a reduction of 72.1%, and approximately 429 hours of dentist time, which is over twelve full working weeks in a year.
What it did for the principal
- Thirty five fewer working days.
- Clinical hours down from 21.5 to 16 a week, moving from three clinical days to two.
- Income per clinical day up 44.4%.
- Onlays per clinical day up 27.8%.
// That is what a well-designed practice looks like. Not working harder. Working better.
Who should attend
Practice owners and dental therapists attend together. This is a requirement of booking.
Therapist-led care only holds when the owner and the therapist build it side by side, with the same understanding of the clinical framework, the diary, the fees and the patient journey. Where one attends alone, the model tends to stall at the first difficult conversation, either with an associate or with a patient.
A practice manager, operations director or business manager is welcome alongside them at no extra charge. Much of what changes in a therapist-led practice is diary structure, fee handling and patient communication, so having the person who manages those systems in the room from the start makes sense.
The course suits you if:
- You have a dental therapist in post, or one starting, and you are not yet using their full scope.
- You want to reduce your own clinical days without reducing what the practice earns.
- You want your dentist hours in complex restorative work rather than routine check-ups.
- You have tried therapist-led care in some form and it has not taken hold.
- You are planning succession, or want the practice to become less dependent on you personally.
What you will learn
By the end of the day, delegates will be able to:
01.
Explain the evidence base for risk-based recall and therapist-delivered check-ups, including the Cochrane review by Fee et al (2020) and the INTERVAL trial, and use it to answer challenge from colleagues and patients.
02.
State accurately what sits within dental therapy scope, how direct access applies, and where the regulatory boundaries fall.
03.
Apply objective criteria for deciding which teeth the therapist treats and which are referred to the dentist.
04.
Structure a therapist-led care appointment minute by minute, and specify the equipment and materials it depends on.
05.
Adapt the patient communication suite, including letters, telephone scripts and in-surgery wording, for their own patient base.
06.
Set fees and model the return on investment for a therapist-led diary in their own practice.
07.
Produce a written implementation plan, agreed between owner and therapist, with sequence, dates and named responsibilities.
The Day
Your delegate pack
Every practice leaves with the working documents. All of it supplied in a format you can adapt and use immediately.
- The full patient communication suite: the letters and language used through the transition of more than three thousand patients.
- The referral guidelines our therapists use, ready to adapt for your own practice.
- The therapist-led care appointment structure, with recommended timings.
- The recommended kit list, with the reasoning behind each choice.
- A fee setting and return on investment worksheet, completed with your own numbers during the afternoon.
- The implementation checklist, completed jointly by owner and therapist before you leave.
- The transition plan for patients already booked in, which is where most practices come unstuck in the first month.
Fees
One practice owner and one dental therapist, attending together // £1995 per practice
Additional dental therapist from the same practice // £495 each
- A practice manager, operations director or business manager from the same practice is welcome to attend at no additional charge. They sit with the team throughout, which makes the restructuring far easier once everyone is back at work.
- The fee includes all course materials, the delegate pack, the patient communication suite, lunch and refreshments, and CPD certification.
- Capacity is capped at twelve delegates, from up to four different practices. That is what the afternoon observation can carry.
- A 10% deposit secures the booking, with the balance due six weeks before the course date.
Dates will be confirmed shortly. To register interest ahead of release, use the form below.
Register your interest
The Therapist-Led Care Programme launches in autumn 2026. Places will be limited. If you would like to be among the first to hear when booking opens, including early access and full programme details, please register your interest below.
Latest News
The tooth I used to monitor
This is the kind of tooth I was leaving every single day. A narrow occlusal amalgam. No symptoms. No signs on the radiograph. The patient had no idea anything was…
The four red flags: how we decide which teeth are at high risk of fracture and caries
Every practice has a set of teeth nobody is treating. A wide amalgam, twenty years old. No pain, no obvious caries, a bitewing that looks acceptable. You tell your patient…
The Dentistry Show
Thank you for finding me If you’re reading this, you scanned a QR code at the end of my presentation at The Dentistry Show, and I’m really glad you did.…