Implant and Ceramic Centre: Our Bespoke On-Site Dental Laboratory

We choose established, well-researched materials and systems, and tell you exactly what goes into your mouth.

Our approach to materials: for every case your dentist prescribes, we set out the metal-free options that are technically possible, so you and your dentist can decide together. BPA-free white fillings are our standard, and ceramic implants are available for suitable patients. Metal-free is not right for every mouth: where strength matters most, metal can still be the best choice, and we will explain why.

• MHRA registered. Implant and Ceramic Centre Ltd is registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as a manufacturer of custom-made dental devices (registration 30454). A statement of manufacture for each crown, bridge, veneer or implant tooth we make is available to you on request.
• Dental Laboratories Association member. We are members of the Dental Laboratories Association (DLA), the UK trade body for dental laboratories.
• GDC registered technicians. Our dental technicians are registered with the General Dental Council.

Our laboratory and team have been recognised by the dental profession and by patients:

• Winner, My Face My Body Awards: Most Innovative Dental Treatments
• Winner, My Face My Body Awards: Best Patient Services
• Runner-up and shortlisted, Best Dental Laboratory, Private Dentistry Awards
• Dental Technician of the Year, three times, The Dental Awards (a member of our laboratory team)

A piece of our history: some years ago our laboratory made the teeth for wax figures at Madame Tussauds in London. The same eye for natural, lifelike detail goes into every tooth we make for our patients today.

Supporting charity

In July 2017 our studios sponsored The Silver Cup match at the Royal Charity Polo Day at Watership Down in Berkshire. Our logo was on the players' shirts, and the day raised money for the event's chosen charities. We're proud to support good causes beyond the barn.

Our laboratory has three experienced dental technicians.

Tom Eagles, Dental Technician and CAD Designer (GDC 305579)

Tom joined as a trainee in 2018 and leads our digital work, scanning models on our 3Shape lab scanner, designing crowns, bridges and implant teeth in 3Shape software, and finishing them in ceramic and zirconia.

Silke Eden, Dental Technician and Dental Nurse (GDC 256491)

Silke has been with us since 2010. She takes digital scans with our DEXIS IS 3800W intraoral scanner, and impressions, matches shades with patients and manages every case from start to finish. She speaks English and German.

Laboratory adviser

Our laboratory adviser advises the team on complex ceramic and implant cases, materials and techniques, and mentors our technicians.

1. Meet the lab. At a booked visit, with a registered dental nurse taking notes, the technician sees your smile and talks through shape and colour with you, without examining your teeth.
2. Shade and photographs. Digital photographs and shade-matching tools record your natural colour.
3. Digital scan. A 3D scan of your teeth and bite with our DEXIS IS 3800W intraoral scanner, so most patients no longer need messy impression trays.
4. Design. Your crown, bridge or implant tooth is scanned and designed with our 3Shape lab scanner and CAD software, and finished in metal-free ceramics such as VITA, which VITA describes as biocompatible. For larger cases you can see a trial version first.
5. Make. Milled from zirconia or ceramic, then layered and characterised by hand for colour, depth and translucency.
6. Fit and check. Your dentist fits it and checks the bite. If something needs adjusting, the lab is next door.

• Ceramic and zirconia crowns and bridges
• e.max veneers, inlays and onlays
• Screw-retained implant crowns and custom abutments
• Full-arch implant bridges (All-on-4 and All-on-6)
• Gum-coloured porcelain or composite for implant work
• Composite inlays, onlays and veneers
• Night guards and bite splints
• Whitening trays and study models
• Dentures, including flexible dentures

Available for treatment made in our on-site laboratory. All appointments with our technicians, including our Technical Director, are on prescription from your dentist only, after a new patient examination: your dentist must prescribe them before they can be booked. It is given by a dental technician, not a dentist. The technician does not examine, diagnose or treat you. Technical tasks such as shade taking are carried out only on your dentist’s prescription, by a technician trained and indemnified for them, within the GDC Scope of Practice (2025). Your dentist carries out all clinical treatment and fits your new teeth. They pass their findings, and anything you ask for, to your dentist, and your dentist makes every decision about your treatment. Once your dentist has prescribed it, reception will book it for you.

• Technical advice: choice of materials, £60. Not sure which material is right for you? The technician explains the materials, including zirconia, glass-ceramic, composite and, where strength is needed, metal, and shows you examples. Your dentist then decides the final plan with you.
• Technical advice: shade matching, £60. At an earlier appointment your dentist loosens your temporary crown, so that at your shade appointment your natural tooth colour can be seen on its own. The technician then takes your shade with shade tabs and photographs, and your dentist fits your new crown at a later appointment. Included in the Bespoke service below.
• Bite and facebow records for your articulator. So your models can be mounted in the correct relationship, a technician trained and indemnified for it may take a wax bite registration or a facebow record. This is done only on your dentist’s prescription, as part of the clinical team, with your dentist in the practice and a dental nurse present. It falls within the additional skills dental technicians may develop under the GDC Scope of Practice (2025). It is a record for making your new teeth, not an examination or treatment, and it is written into your notes.
• Technical advice at your dentist’s try-in, £60. Before your crown or veneer is finished, your dentist tries it in your mouth. The technician attends to see how it looks and notes your requests about shape and shade. Your dentist checks the fit and bite and decides on any changes, which are made in the lab before it is fitted.
• Technical advice with our Technical Director, £60. For complex, implant or full-smile cases, our Technical Director, a Vita Master Technician, reviews your photographs, shade and models with you and reports back to your dentist.

We offer two levels of service, so dentists and patients can choose how much input they want.

Standard service. Made from your scan or impression and the dentist's shade prescription, to the same materials and quality checks as every case we make. Priced in line with UK laboratories.

Bespoke patient service. Everything in the Standard service, plus:

1. Shade-matching technical advice with your technician (about 30 minutes, by appointment), with a registered dental nurse present to take notes. Your colour, shape and character are recorded with photographs and digital shade matching.
2. A preview of the planned result. A digital design or a trial (mock-up) of the new tooth, shown to you before anything is made, so you can say what you want changed. This is a guide to the expected result, not a guarantee, because the final look depends on your mouth and gums.
3. A bespoke temporary crown, made in our lab to the planned shape, so you can live with the look and bite while the final crown is made.
4. The finished crown, handmade and characterised to the notes from your visit.
5. A spare temporary. We keep a copy of your temporary on file, so if your crown ever needs repairing or replacing you are not left with a gap.

The difference in price covers about 1 to 1.5 hours of extra technician time per tooth, the shade-matching technical advice and the extra temporary work.

For patients concerned about dental materials, our laboratory assembles a sample pack of the materials we use, for their allergy tester: zirconia, titanium, e.max (lithium disilicate), feldspathic porcelain, denture base acrylic, Combilign samples in pink and tooth-coloured acrylic, an Enigma acrylic denture tooth, temporary crown material and the cements being considered. A standard pack is £95 and a bespoke pack made to the dentist’s prescription is £145, plus £5.50 standard UK postage, and is assembled only after your dentist has given a written treatment plan and your dermatologist has said which materials they want to test, taking 2 weeks from then.

• Dentists: order a pack for your patient and send the patient file to lab@ceramiccentre.com.
• Patients: read allergy testing before treatment, then book the pack online or ask reception.
• See each material, its supplier and its contents.
• See the pack in our fee list.

Our laboratory fee list is for referring dentists and practices only. Dentists can log in to the dentists’ lab fee list, or ask reception for the password. Patient fees, which include our lab work, are on the fees page.

See the team and the lab at work on Instagram and Facebook.