Reopening the practice – 8th June

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

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

Our practice will be opening on that day but we just wanted to be clear that this 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. 

Initially, we will be prioritising patients who have experienced a dental emergency during lock down. Following this, we will be booking appointments for patients that have outstanding treatments, before resuming routine care.

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 sothat when you receive care, it is 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 will 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

·      Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you are offered fewer options for scheduling yourappointment.

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:

•                 Except for 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 thedental practice

•                 Payment will be taken over the phone upon booking where possible

•                 If you show symptoms following appointment booking, you should contact the practice by phone

•                 Please do not arrive early to the practice. If necessary, you should wait outside thepractice

•                 Please do not arrive without an appointment

We expect that we will be very busy in the coming days arranging appointments for emergency patients. If you need to contact the practice and it is not urgent. Please email and we will respond as soon as possible 

We’ve made a video to explain how your journey at the practice will look – Click here

We look forward to welcoming you back to the practice.

Sincerely,

The Team at Carriageworks Dental.