May 29, 2020
So, a lot of cheering from our two young adults at home after the announcement that you can now meet with more than just one friend and their celebration included the words “it will be so nice to see people other than just our parents” !!!!!
As you will all no doubt be aware the government has also announced that dentists can now re-open on June 8th and this has been backed up by the Chief Dental Officer (CDO) for England.
We have got to say this is completely out of the blue as all indications, based on the government guidelines, that close contact professionals such as hairdressers would not reopen until July 4th and therefore we were working towards this date.
While we are keen to start providing care as soon as possible we would ask for your continued patience while we get up and running. As you can imagine opening involves a lot of planning which we have been doing for the last several months, (rewriting policies, new risk assessments and training of staff for the new normal) some of which we have communicated to you via email in the last few weeks.
The biggest hurdle we have to overcome currently is the availability of PPE. We have spent many hours trawling through lists of suppliers and regularly calling to see what is in stock and have managed over the weeks to gather a small supply. However, some of the supplies, such as face masks/respirators, will not be available to us for several weeks so, sadly, we will be unable to open our doors on June 8th and until we have the delivery date for PPE we cannot give you a precise date.
We have created a policy document which outlines everything to do with the reopening. In this you will see that we mention ‘fallow time’- time at the end of each appointment that we are now required to allow for cleaning and disinfection of the treatment room above and beyond what we used to need to do. This means that any appointments currently booked in our diary will have to be reappointed to allow for this process. The team will be in touch as soon as we know return dates to start the process of rebooking the entire diary. Please click here to read the policy.
We do have a list of clients who have contacted us over the lockdown with pain and these will be our first priority. We will then arrange appointments for;
- Clients with treatment that was not completed before lockdown.
- Clients who were due for Hygienist and Dental Health Review visits during lockdown.
- Clients due for Invisalign reviews.
Finally, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your loyalty over this period of closure. As a small business, and one not in the category of retail, hospitality or leisure, we were not eligible for much of the government assistance and were still liable to pay business rates etc. The monthly membership fees alongside our cash reserves have given us breathing space and allowed the situation to be not too stressful from a cash flow point of view.
Please monitor the blog page on our website, our Instagram and Facebook pages for further updates and await our phone call to re-arrange your appointments as soon as we possibly can.
Keep well, safe and enjoy your opportunity to see family and friends after this long period of time