A third of the practice arrived frightened, so the routine is well worn. Your first appointment can be a conversation in the chair with the door open and the instruments out of sight; nothing happens on day one unless you ask it to. We agree a stop signal before anything begins and honour it instantly, every time. You keep the same clinician for every visit, appointments are booked long so nothing is rushed, and Dr Sharma — who leads this list — has an unbroken record of eventually being forgiven by people who swore they would never sit in a dental chair again. Several of them now come in for check-ups without white knuckles, which is the only statistic on this page we are sentimental about.

Dental pain does not respect the appointment book, so every morning at 8:30 we hold back same-day slots for people in trouble — swollen faces, broken teeth, crowns in envelopes, the lot. Ring 01780 482 316 when the phones open and say the word emergency; you do not need to be an existing patient. The £95 emergency fee covers the X-ray and enough treatment to make you comfortable that day, and anything further is quoted in writing before it is booked. Out of surgery hours, the answerphone message carries the NHS 111 route and our advice line, so nobody with a throbbing jaw is left googling at midnight.

Some things are better done elsewhere, and a practice this old has learned to say so early. We do not offer intravenous sedation in-house: patients who need it are referred to a sedation clinic in Peterborough we know well, with our notes and X-rays sent ahead so nothing is repeated or re-charged. Complex orthodontics goes to a specialist in Leicester; difficult wisdom teeth to the oral surgery unit. And a certain amount of cosmetic work is talked out of the room entirely — if whitening and a little bonding will do what a row of veneers was about to be sold to do, you will hear that from us with the fee guide open. The referral letter leaves within two working days, with a copy addressed to you in plain English.