New Practice Attendance Protocol

Whilst we remain affected by issues around Covid we have changed how patients attend. We no longer use our waiting room and we have changed our entrance to the back door of our building.

The backdoor, labelled No 1  (Black Door toward the corner between the two blocks of buildings) is accessed from the rear car park which you can reach via Grays Road (next to the Plough Pub...just to the right of the Plough). Our windows are labelled "NURSERY ROAD DENTAL PRACTICE"

Once you have located our door, either ring our rear door bell or give us a ring. Usually one of the nurses will acknowledge your arrival.

The aim of this is to minimise the number of people in our building at any one time ....once called in, you go stright to our clinic. There are bench seats outside where you can sit to wait on a sunny day but if the weather is raining then we will ring you in your car to say we are ready to see you.

We would prefer patients not to use our patient toilet unless absolutely necessary.

At the moment we allow 20 to 30 minutes between patients (fallow time) which allows our Swiss air filtration systems plenty of time to remove any potential viral contamination. The current low level of community virus means that this is in most cases an added safety issue.

Most of Dentistry creates airborne sprays so we operate a strict regime that involves myself and my staff wearing fully ventilated filtered hoods. These make us look a little "space like" but overall nobody seems too bothered. The web site has images of us in our gear.

We keep the surgery a little colder than normal (19 degrees) mainly because we get hot under our equipment so I advise you to wear a jumper or light coat especially on longer procedures.

All bookings, payments etc are handled over the phone. On complex issues I will usually chat either outside before or after your visit or with just masks inside before we start tratments. You do need masks to initially enter the building but obviously not once treatment starts.

Treatments are sometimes confined to essentials....so very often we will do a scale for instance but not a polish. This is because spitting out is an issue that can create uncontrolled contamination of surfaces.

It all sounds very complex but it actually works perfectly well even including complex treatments.

Once we have dealt with the emergencies that arose during lockdown we hope to return to a more normal routine recall system but this does depend on issues outside of our control such as new variants or "new waves".....hopefully these won't happen?

Under the HEADER above you will see "More" and beneath that you will find "Practice Pictures". Here you will find images that show how you access our car park and our rear door.