Coronavirus Update 25/3/20

Today the Chief Dental Officer of England, Sarah Hurley, published an updated guidance letter to all dental practices. From today they have decided that there should be no face to face dental contact with patients.  The information was:

1) All routine, non-urgent dental care, including orthodontics should be stopped and deferred until advised otherwise

2) All practices should establish a remote urgent care service providing telephone triage for their patients with urgent needs during usual working hours and whenever possible treating with - Advice, Analgesia and Antimicrobial means where appropriate

3) If the patient's condition cannot be managed by these means, then they will need to be referred to the appropriate part of their Local Urgent Dental Care system

We have already cancelled all our routine appointments and have the phone put through to our dentist for advice and to triage already. Local Urgent Dental Care has not yet been set up (that we are aware of) but we shall be hopefully getting further advice on this.  The idea of keeping serious emergency patients in one place means they can be treated with the appropriate PPE (for example special types of masks) which we don't have in normal dental practice.  It will also reduce the risk of spreading this virus to the general public and to general dental staff. 

We are all trying to do our best to follow the government's guidelines in this difficult time and we hope you understand.  

As a practice we will be extending our hours temporary when we get back to normal, to catch up with the backlog of treatment. We will try and keep you all posted but feel free to contact the surgery with any concerns you have.  

Keep safe, keep well and see you all when this is over. 

Rebecca Bayne