Urgent information:

Dear Patients:

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

You may have heard that dental practices are beginning to reopen from Monday 8 June.

As our main priority will be to ensure public and patients’ safety, we just wanted to be clear that this may not be business as usual. The treatments you are offered may be different from those you received before March 25^th 2020, depending on staff and equipment available. It will take some time before services return to what you previously experienced as normal. Please be patient.

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.

Parkhill Dental 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
• The dental team may be wearing different protective equipment to what you used to see
• We no longer offer magazines, children’s toys 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 to 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
• 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 the practice
• Please do not arrive without an appointment
• Patients should come wearing a mask if possible or be prepared to wear one.

Sincerely,

The Team at Parkhill Dental Practice