19th March 2020
As I’m sure you will all now know, Covid-19 is a highly infectious disease which has extremely serious consequences for many sufferers. It is spread though close contact and droplet spread via surfaces. In dental practice we routinely use procedures that generate aerosols (basically an airborne mist). Such aerosols have been shown to linger for long periods and as such represent a very high risk of spreading this disease.
Whilst we still have no guidance from Public Health England, or the Chief Dental Officer for England (CDO), the Government’s spokesperson on dentistry, there has been guidance issued by both the Welsh and Scottish CDOs. This guidance states that aerosol generating procedures should not be used. The Welsh guidance goes further and says that routine treatment and non-urgent contact should not take place.
Aside from aerosols, the risk of spreading Covid 19 is greatly increased by close contact between individuals. The number of people and the time spent in close contact is also significant. As you can imagine, it is not possible for us to provide our services to patients without close contact.
As a result I have made the decision to effectively close the practice to all non-urgent care in order to minimise the contact between individuals and in close proximity. We are still open in order to provide advice to those who seek it and you can reach us via telephone 0151 424 2516, via email, and Facebook. I am also setting up a live chat facility on our website which is available for anyone to use.
I want to assure all of our patients that ultimately our service will return to normal and that you will not be disadvantaged. These are extremely challenging times, not least because we have continuing financial commitments and no help from the NHS or government.
I fully understand the inconvenience this may cause but our first duty is to protect our patients – in the words of Hippocrates “First, do no harm”.
My team and I thank you for your support and understanding.
Best regards
Matt
