S3 Dental Eltham Reopening Plans

The UK government announced on the 28th May 2020 that dental practices will be allowed to reopen for face to face appointments from the 8th June 2020. Dental Practices nationwide were not given any notice of this, and the Chief Dental Officer of England herself was unaware of this news based on a letter issued by her office earlier in the day.

We were subsequently issued guidance for dental practices following the shock announcement which has clarified the Prime Ministers statement and states that we are only allowed to reopen to face to face if we are able to ensure patient safety and have the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE).

S3 Dental has an excellent standard of infection control, and Dentistry itself is regarded as a very safe environment for patients to be treated, so we already have excellent measures in place to look after and care for our patients. However, the recent shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), and guidelines suggesting that more specialised masks need to be worn, mean that we are currently not able to reopen the practice on the 8th of June.

We are continuing to monitor the guidelines relating to PPE, and no doubt further information will be published on how dental practices are expected to reopen whilst there is a national shortage of the necessary PPE. Once we have received the correct guidance by the Department Of Health, we will begin the process of returning to work.

It is important to highlight that at this stage, we will unlikely be operating as before, and additional measures based on social distancing will mean your visit to the practice will be very different, we will all require time to adjust to the “new normal”.

We have been using this period of closure to improve our services, invested in paperless solutions for smoother patient visits, a virtual consultation service as well a number of additional safety measures. We will however be restricted in the number of patients allowed in the building, waiting areas and those allowed to be seen in a day. These measures are designed to ensure patients safety at all times and any risk of coronavirus infection is mitigated.

We will initially focus on treating those patients who require urgent dental care, patients who were in the midst of treatment and patients on membership plans at the practice. Once we have ensured that we are able to safely increase our capacity to see patients we will begin booking routine dental appointments and treatments for all patients. We thank you in advance for your continued support and look forward to seeing you in due course.

Remember to follow us on our social media channels for more updates on our reopening timetable and for special relaunch offers for our dental and facial aesthetics services.

Yours sincerely

Dr Sami Butt & The S3 Dental Team