What do you think you are worth? Leave a comment
Just recently, there was a good deal of discussion on the Facebook page for Dental Technicians GB about two adverts for vacancies; one for a locum Dental Nurse from an agency in Bristol and the other for a part time Dental Technician in Bolton. The salary offered for the Locum Dental Nurse from an agency was £13.00 per hour, together with the offer of further training. The salary offered for the part time Dental Technician was £8.00 per hour., despite being required to have at least five years experience as a Technician and to be capable of high quality NHS and Private Prosthetics! It was for a part-time post with hours to be discussed. The ad was from a laboratory in Bolton. Certainly the comparison between the two positions and the salaries offered would seem to suggest that Technicians are treated, by the profession, with little or no respect for their abilities. Undoubtedly there will be areas of the country where salary scales are lower than others and there will be those who undervalue their own abilities, but £8.00. per hour, really? But please note it was a laboratory owner, presumably a Technician who offered that salary.
Below, I have quoted the salary scales as published for 2016/17 by the DTA and the latest figures available from the DLA for 2014/2015 together with a guide for evaluation of technicians for each scale.
Of course the guidelines are for minimum salaries and will not necessarily reflect the reality around the country. Nor can it quote for the higher rates of pay for those with particular abilities, or indeed the market need in any areas at the time, but they do make interesting reading. Certainly a salary of £8.00 per hour for an experienced prosthetic technician would seem remarkably low; indeed, not very much higher than the minimum national living wage. Just a glance at the tables from both groups would suggest that, as a newly qualified Technician, a salary of £10.00 per hour would be indicated and with the required five years experience then we should be thinking in terms of over £11.00 per hour. Certainly not a flag waving amount, but how can a laboratory offer £8.00 per hour? Bolton, after all, is not the third world and it has over the years been home to many well known laboratories.
Salaries used to be guided by the NJC, but they have not been used for a couple of years. The DTA and the DLA liaise with the various government departments to produce their lists but are at pains to say they are minimum figures and payment above will be according the particular skills or area in which the technician may be working. Clearly the greater effort you make to become specialised or accomplished in one or other area of the technology gives you quite an edge and raises the potential to earn.
On the salary quoted above, you could work at LIDL or ALDI or many other stores and with very little training could certainly earn £8.00+ per hour. With a bit of application you could soon be earning a good deal more. So ask yourself if all that training and all that worry has been worth it.
At a time when undergraduate dentists are not being trained to understand or know very much at all about the laboratory processes, when the technical knowledge which is vital to a satisfactory restoration is more required than ever, even with digital applications, it does seem as if the training of technicians, with a few notable exceptions, is so very undervalued. There are only a few accessible colleges with the vast majority of trainees being taught on the job. The GDC and registration in no way confirms the quality of restorations being fitted and have no mechanism in place to check the suitability of restorations. Their view is that the dentist is the judge of the suitability and quality. But as they are not being taught at undergraduate level, from where are they supposed to aquire the knowledge?
While technicians for many years have complained about the short- comings of their clinical colleagues, the evidence is now clear of very poor quality NHS restorations with only some exceptions in the private market. The digital processes can serve to overcome some of that cynical unit-per-day attitude, but it still requires experience and knowledge to be applied in order to be sure of a fit-for-purpose restoration. In a rather depressing phone call with a former colleague this week, it was made clear that laboratory work in the UK, in a great many cases, is not fit for purpose. A huge percentage is being sent to the far east by corporate dentistry but also by cynical technicians who are only interested in the bottom line while fronting the operation as able and involved technicians. Whatever the shape and form of dental technology for the future, it is very firmly in our hands. The professional dental technicians who wish to retain their integrity and the quality and suitability of their craft will need to stand up and be counted, and confront attempts to dilute the required abilities for long lasting laboratory-made dental restorations. I would underline that this is not an attack on the new digital systems but on the old cynical attitude of get it out fast and cheap, whatever! We are supposed to belong to a caring profession with our patients as our premier concern we really do need to address the future and find a mechanism by which standards of restorations can be maintained and understood.
