You may have heard that dental practices have been allowed to reopen for limited treatments from the 8th June.
Our practice will be reopening on the 15Th June. Although this will be welcome news for a lot of you, please be aware that this will not be business as usual, as the surgery will introduce a phased reopening over the next few months. Under current guidance we will be operating a closed-door policy, meaning entry to the practice will only be granted to those patients with a scheduled appointment. The practice will continue to be available via e-mail or telephone. You will not be allowed to walk in the surgery as normal.
The treatments you are offered may be limited to those you received before, depending on staff and equipment available. It will take some time before services return to what you previously experienced as normal. Please be patient. All routine treatments previously booked before lockdown have been cancelled until further notice.
Also, we already have quite a large backlog of emergencies that has been created due to the lockdown, with some patients having to wait over 2 months for treatment that was considered not severe enough for the NHS Urgent Care Centres. We thank you all for your patience as we deal with these patients.
Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines, but it will take some time for dental surgeries to be back to ‘normal’.
Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our surgery. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. In the wake of Covid-19, we require much stricter protocols. These advanced protocols will require more time between patients and will make patient turnover much slower. Initially we might only be able to see a handful of patients a day.
Currently, there are still limitations to treatment we can offer, the main one being while the National Risk Level is at level 4, we cannot offer aerosol/ water spray generating procedures which include drilling and ultrasonic scaling. This will be a major limitation on treatments available. Some routine appointments are still not available and might not be available for some time to come. We will be getting in touch with patients that have contacted us during lockdown with emergencies during the coming weeks to arrange time to see them. You might not be able to see specific dentists initially, and it might take some time for us to offer that service.
Please remember this will be new for all of us, and bear with us as we adapt to our surgery protocols. We do not wish to make things harder for you guys, but it might feel that way to start with.
We have a long road ahead, and we thank you (again) for your continuing patience and understanding.
Sincerely and kind regards
Dr Zaki Anwar and the Bean Oak Dental team