A Letter to Our Patients

We hope this letter finds you and your families in good health.

You may have heard that dental practices can open to routine care from Monday 8 June.

We are planning to reopen our practice on Monday 29th June, we are working tirelessly to prepare the surgery, sourcing PPE for our staff and patients and updating our training, to make your visit to us as safe as possible.

We will be prioritising patients with dental emergencies and those patients that were due to have treatment completed before lockdown began. We will be contacting those patients in the coming weeks.

We hope you understand that patients with routine dental treatments will need to be postponed, to allow us to help those with more urgent problems.

We have measures in place that ensure that services are still accessible to patients with severe dental emergencies and more urgent cases. If you do have a severe dental emergency please call us on 0208 889 3773.

However, we just wanted to be clear, that when we open, it may not be business as usual. The treatments you are offered may be different 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.

We understand that many of you would like to have an appointment, however we will have limited capacity, due to current guidelines indicating we need to ‘air the surgery’ for between 30- 60 minutes, after each patient. We will do our best to work through the back log and see you as soon as it is possible.

Dentists Drills & High-Speed Tools, create a lot of ‘Spray’ from the patient’s mouths. So we need to use very special protective clothing and equipment, We have invested in state of the art air-purification systems, and extra strong suction machines to help minimise the spread of COVID-19.

Unfortunately, some of this equipment needs to be tested, fitted and checked by accredited institutions. Due to a national shortage of this testing equipment, there will be a delay before we are able to use our High Speed tools.

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. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your safety.

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. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our practice follows infection control guidelines made by the governing bodies. We are up-to-date on new guidance that has been issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to recommendations.

You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff.

For example:

  • Our practice will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again at your appointment.
  • We have hand sanitiser that we will ask you to use when you enter the practice. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the practice for you to use as needed.
  • Your temperature will be taken as you enter the surgery.
  • We no longer offer magazines, and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
  • Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.

We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.

How you can help?:

  • With the exception of children and patients with carers, patients should come alone.
  • A distance of at least 2 metres must be observed if another patient is present in the dental practice.
  • Payment should be made by card where possible.
  • Please try and visit the rest room before you visit, as toilets may be unavailable.
  • If you show symptoms following appointment booking, you should contact the practice by phone.
  • Please do not arrive early to the practice. When you arrive you will be asked to wait outside, (or in your car) and call our receptionist to let us know you have arrived. Once we are ready we will call you to come inside.
  • Please do not arrive without an appointment.
  • Patients should come wearing a mask if possible or be prepared to wear one.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding, while we all adapt to this new way of working.

Yours Sincerely,

Mark Marcou & My-Dental Care Team

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