The Bright Smile team have been monitoring government guidance and preparing to reopen by implementing new protocols which we can now safely follow and will therefore be reopening on Wednesday 22nd July.
We will initially be contacting all of our patients who had appointments cancelled during the lock-down, by initially a telephone triage to ensure that you are not in the at risk category and it is safe for you to attend, followed by face to face appointment as necessary.
Appointments will be limited due to the fact that we are now seeing patients for longer appointment times to ensure both patients and staff remain safe at all times.
We look forward to seeing you all again very soon.
Covid-19 Policy
This policy has been created based on multiple updated sources from the dental and medical professions with government guidance policies and recommendations.
It outlines modifications to our normal procedures that we will employ once the practice has reopened.
The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic is still evolving, so advice and guidance in turn is continually changing, therefore our policies and recommendations are likely to change in line with new evidence from time to time.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our patients for their understanding during the period of temporary closure and for their cooperation whilst we implement new measures at our practice.
Our policies will ensure we will be providing dental hygiene care for all of our patients in the safest possible environment and we greatly appreciate your patience and assistance with any new or modified procedures at the practice.
NEW MEASURES
Our normal cross infection control protocols procedures already protect against all known pathogens which are already implemented in all clinical activity carried out at the Practice.
It should be remembered that the dental environment already has very high standards of hygiene in comparison to public areas and there has been no evidence of Covid-19 transmission in dental settings.
We have evaluated all of the updated guidance and observed what measures have been recommended by the guidelines and we have put them in place at Bright Smile. We feel that the measures which are outlined in this policy will reduce the risk of covid -19 risk to a minimum.
All staff have received training in all the different areas to ensure we have a robust systems in place and we will be fastidious in adhering to them.
TIMETABLE
The Practice will reopen for patients on Wednesday 22nd July 2020.
We have prepared the practice for reopening and have updated our policies and procedures before patients return to the practice.
PATIENT COMMUNICATION BEFORE REOPENING
We will be contacting patients and confirming appointments ahead of their scheduled appointment time.
We will request that all patients who are attending the Practice to update their medical history forms beforehand. These forms will now be in electronic format and we will send this out prior to your appointment via email. Patients without email will be telephone triaged.
The assessment forms now include a pre-screening form, which will allow us to assess your level of risk for coronavirus before you attend the Practice.
BEFORE ATTENDING THE PRACTICE
We will carry out a pre-attendance assessment with your completed medical history and assessment forms the day before your appointment with a telephone conversation to assess your medical history and relative coronavirus infection status.
If we feel you are at risk of having coronavirus, even if you are asymptomatic, we will ask that you re-booking your appointment or postpone your visit for at least 14 days.
We will be operating contactless payment systems going forwards as much as possible. Payment by cheque/cash payments must be the exact amount in a sealed envelope with your name and date of your appointment on the envelope and handed in at reception on arrival.
When travelling to the Practice, we recommend that you limit close contact with members of the public as far as possible.
The Practice door will be locked, so please knock on arrival. Please ensure you are wearing a face covering.
One adult is permitted to attend with a child or adult with disabilities, please do not bring additional family members with you unless they are happy for them to wait in your car or the car park outside of the building.
ARRIVING AT THE PRACTICE
When you attend the practice, we will welcome you and ask for you to leave your personal items within your car . If this is not possible, we will have an area within the practice for items to be stored. The doors will remain locked at all times however we cannot accept liability for personal items so please limit what you bring into the
building. Do not arrive early for your appointments as you will not be able to wait in the waiting room anymore.
We will take your temperature with a touch-less thermometer. If your temperature is above 37.8 degrees Celsius, you will be unable to enter the building and will be asked to return home to self-isolate as per the current government guidelines and contact 111 for further advice.
Appointments will be staggered so that patients do not arrive or leave at the same time as other patients.
The receptionist will ask you to use the touch-less hand sanitiser in the reception area after your temperature has been taken. All being well, we will direct you into the surgery.
Please note, the restrooms will be for emergency use only at this time, however if you do need to use it please inform a member of staff so that the it can be disinfected afterwards.
PRACTICE PROCEDURES
Bright Smile Dental Hygiene Practice has spent time critically looking at every aspect of the Practice with a view to removing all non-essential items that can potentially be the cause of infection.
All clinical and common areas, including door handles and surfaces will be regularly disinfected in between patients, in addition to our normal cross infection control procedures.
We will be providing a longer time period between patients to allow for additional decontamination procedures and preparation time for the next patient. This will help to ensure that patients are not kept waiting unnecessarily outside of the practice.
All future appointments will be confirmed in surgery or by email, text or telephone to limit your time at reception.
DENTAL PROCEDURES
Bright Smile Dental Hygiene Practice will be using personal protective equipment in line with current recommendations and evidence.
We are especially mindful that some of our treatments are aerosol-generating procedures (AGP’s).
Aerosols suspended in the air are theoretically a source of infection which we obviously wish to keep to a minimum, so we are currently hand scaling only to avoid risk of transmission.
Currently dental literature suggests:
- The use of our normal high volume suction to reduces aerosol production by over 90%
- Our regular surgical face masks filter approximately 60% of remaining airborne particles
- FFP2 and FFP3 masks filter 94% and 99% respectively of airborne particles in both directions (patient to clinician and clinician to patient).
We therefore feel that our normal dental hygiene procedures can be carried out with minimal risk.
SUMMARY
The vast majority of our patients are otherwise healthy and without coronavirus.
We are confident that we are able to provide dental hygiene services for our patients in as normal an environment as possible, whilst bearing in mind our responsibilities to mitigate risks of infection spread as far as is practically possible.