Meet Sophie
Sophie has been with us for seven years, beginning her career as a receptionist at the Railway Rd, Blackburn practice. As a clear leader, Sophie was soon chosen to progress as a practice manager and has since gone from strength to strength, transforming both her original Blackburn practice and now our Burnley practice, one of our largest, which she led through the pandemic. Sophie is an excellent manager who gives her time to develop her team and improve oral health in East Lancashire, a very deserved winner of the Practice Manager of the Year award at the prestigious Dentistry Awards 2020!
Career progression
On joining {my}dentist, Sophie was immediately recognised as a high performer. She is naturally caring and aimed to provide the best patient journey, reorganising reception for the benefit of both patients and staff. She soon caught the attention of her area manager who came to rely on her and helped her begin her journey to Practice Manager. After successfully running our practice in the centre of Blackburn, Sophie was chosen to join the 50-strong team at our Burnley practice to lead its transformation into an Advanced Oral Health Centre – a regional centre of dentistry excellence. Since joining, she’s also taken compliance to 100% and improved clinician productivity through working on increased diary utilisation and reducing DNAS.
Developing her team and new practice managers
Sophie has managed to build up a competent team of staff, with a highly motivated head receptionist and head nurse to help her with the compliance and smooth running of the practice. She sees potential in people and ensures that they achieve their best. The practice is now able to provide every type of specialism and with Sophie’s encouragement, one of the dentists has qualified in sedation, two of the nurses have qualified in implants, a further nurse has become radiography qualified and another is looking to do sedation. During the last 14 months, she has helped to train at least four practice managers as well as stepping in to support those practices who needed extra support.
Leadership during the pandemic
Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, Sophie has supported anxious staff and clinicians, holding numerous Microsoft Teams meetings and ensuring that the Standard Operating Procedures were fully understood and implemented. The NHS Area Team were keen to have the Burnley practice on board as an Urgent Dental Centre so, alongside the Area Manager and Clinical Support Manager, she worked with the team to help this to happen, extending the practice opening hours for two evenings a week as well as opening every Saturday from the end of May. She ensured there was always a bright window display during these difficult times to cheer up the patients and neighbours and encouraged some VE day celebrations with the practice staff in between telephone triaging to keep up their spirits.
Launch of {my}options
During her time in Blackburn, Sophie was chosen to be one of 20 practices to be the first to trial {my}options, a new approach to affordable private care. She made a huge success of this, demonstrating that it would work well and directly impacting the accelerating roll-out across the UK.
Becoming an Advanced Oral Health Centre (AOHC)
In 2019, Sophie joined the Burnley practice specifically to project manage its transformation into one of {my}dentist’s AOHCs. This involved getting a strong team of patient-focused staff and clinicians together who would be able to provide all of the dental specialisms under one roof. She was able to recognise talent and channel nurses to gain extra qualifications to progress the practice and improve the options available to patients as well as improving the quality of care. Sophie also worked closely with the area manager to ensure that the staff were able to work flexibly so that some evenings and weekends could be offered as the demand from patients increased.
We would like to congratulate Sophie on her amazing award win and thank her for all the incredible work and commitment she has put into the role over the years, not forgetting all the wonderful support she has shown towards her staff and fellow colleagues during this time.
If you think you’ve got the skills to become a Practice Manager and have been inspired by Sophie’s journey please email Alexandra Edge at [email protected] for an informal chat today or if you are already a practice manager wanting to learn more about how you can progress in your role get in touch with your ADM who will support you.