Dear friends and valued patients,
We hope you are staying well. We wanted to stay in touch and give you an update on return to work plans for our dental practice.
It has now been 2 months since the Government introduced the national lockdown measures, to suppress the spread of Coronavirus.
We, like many dentists across the UK, thought that we would have been allowed to re-open our surgeries by now to recommence the delivery of face-to-face care for our patients. Unfortunately, the UK Government and the Office of the Chief Dental Officer (OCDO) have been very slow and unhelpful in supplying us with information about re-opening. This woeful lack of Government guidance is causing all dental professionals grave concern. Without patient access to routine dental care, there may be irreversible damage to our patient’s dental health and as a direct result, their medical health. Many other European countries are back to normal levels dental provision.
As a dental practice, we are currently working on a plan that incorporates best practices according to infection control standards with stringent enhancements to address the risk. presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Having been in practice for 20 years, we have never before experienced a situation where we have been unable to see our patients for face-to-face care. We are currently doing our best to assist our patients by continuing to triage our emergencies and providing practical advice – over the telephone – to manage simple dental problems. We can also arrange referral to the dedicated Urgent Dental Care centres for the most serious dental emergencies. Whilst we all appreciate that this is not ideal, we are doing our best to support and care for our patients given the current circumstances and the severe restrictions to dental practice imposed by the Government.
We sincerely hope that we will receive some definitive guidance from the Government by the end of the month and that we will be able to confirm a date for re-opening the practice so that we can care for our own patients. We will, of course, aim to prioritise patients with emergencies before commencing any ‘routine’ dental appointments.
We will be writing to you shortly about changes to the way your appointments will operate to encompass the enhanced infection control procedures that we are implementing.
In the meantime, the whole The Parkstone Dental team would like to thank you for your on-going support, patience and understanding and we hope to see your lovely smiles again very soon! Do keep safe and well and enjoy the sunshine.
Kindest regards,
Dr Richard Edwards and Dr Paru Edwards
The Parkstone Dental Practice