Isn’t location everything? Nuffield Dental ‘implants’ flagship Jewel clinic on Orchard Road

The clinic features recovery rooms, a lab, an expert team, and, soon, an academy.

After spending 13 years of his medical practice in England, Dr. Samintharaj Kumar got fixated on the wellness and healthy lifestyle promoted by the Nuffield gym, part of the largest British healthcare charity. And with that name, Kumar opened his Nuffield Dental Group business in Singapore in 2014 with absolutely zero connection to Nuffield Health.

Now, after implanting over 10 dental clinics in Singapore, the Nuffield Dental Group CEO and founder was faced with a simple yet daunting task – finding a location for the dental group’s flagship clinic.

“We wanted Nuffield Dental Jewel to be the flagship clinic for Nuffield Dental. So it was important that the location was central enough that our patients could funnel into a centre of excellence for complex treatments,” Kumar told Healthcare Asia.

In 2020, it struck Kumar to install Nuffield Dental Jewel at Wheelock Place, Orchard Road, dubbed as one of the ultimate shopping streets in Southeast Asia. The location allows them to cater to tourists and locals since Orchard Road attracts seven million visitors annually, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.

“It was very difficult to find a location at that point in time to be very honest, but we were very lucky to get the space where we are at the moment. It spans two units at Wheelock Place,” said Kumar. “It enjoys a very good sort of reach to local customers and also international visitors because of the hotels and the shopping that’s along with it.”

Having the flagship clinic also meant upscaling their resources. And that meant installing six dental chairs at Nuffield Dental Jewel from the usual three or four chairs that deliver intravenous sedation procedures safely in their other clinics. 

In choosing Wheelock Place, Kumar wanted to ensure that the space can house a 3,600-square-foot dental laboratory.

Aside from dental surgeries and high technology, he said their clinic has a dedicated team of dental technicians to develop prostheses or dental crowns, which are fixed prosthetic devices that replace missing teeth.

“It is difficult or virtually impossible to do high-end dentistry without immediate close laboratory support from our technicians,” Kumar explained.

It depends on the dental expert’s examination, but full mouth rehabilitation will likely include tooth whitening, composite bonding, orthodontic teeth straightening, and dental implants, amongst others. 

That is why the flagship clinic features recovery rooms for patients who had multiple procedures to restore teeth and bite at optimal conditions.

“These are hospital-style rooms where patients can lie down for prolonged periods of time, even up to a day. Here, their vitals such as blood pressure, pulse rate, and oxygen saturation levels can be monitored on an hourly basis,” Kumar said.

Dental academy

But building clinics is not the only important task for Kumar’s dental group, it is also honing the skills of their staff. To add more teeth to the training of dental nurses, Nuffield Dental Group has its own academy.

The academy, which was accredited by SkillsFuture Singapore, offers high-quality courses to dental surgeons, who will increase the quality of oral care in Lion City. 

It offers courses on wisdom teeth removal, oral surgery, implant dentistry, ceramic implants, platelet-rich fibrin, and learning cutting-edge technology like how to use the T-scan.

Kumar said the training was first offered to their in-house employees. Over 10 dental nurses were trained in the academy. But now, they are opening the academy even to dental nurses from other clinics who do not have much training.

More than training them in the use of dental chairs and dental sterilisation rooms, nurses get upskilled in the dental environment for three days after finishing the course.

All courses at the academy will help ensure uniformity and a high level of precision in dental processes, especially the All-On-4 procedure.

This academy’s location is being eyed at the Nuffield Dental Jewel, where courses for experienced dental clinicians for Singapore and other countries are organised.