Our new patient journey created by the government along with dental and medical professionals includes a number of safety protocols to protect you and our team.
Some things will be a little different than before, however we are taking a number of precautions to ensure that your journey with us is a smooth one with safety and efficiency paramount.
Before You Attend The Clinic:
We will be contacting clients to confirm appointments in advance. We politely request that all patients who are attending The Welbeck Clinic to update their medical forms on arrival, which now includes a coronavirus (COVID-19) status to be completed, we also ask you to either bring your own pen or a disposable one will be provided.
Before your appointment we will carry out a pre-attendance screening via phone beforehand and again on arrival to assess relative coronavirus infection risk.
If we feel that you are at risk of having possibly been infected, even if you are asymptomatic, we will respectfully request for you to delay booking any appointments with us for at least 2 weeks. You may be charged for the appointment if we are unable to fill it at short notice following our usual cancellation policy.
We recommend that any patients in the high-risk groups delay non-essential dental treatment for as long as possible, until the inclination of the pandemic is clearer. If you are in a high risk group but do require treatment, we will schedule your appointment at the beginning of the day.
The Welbeck Clinic will be mainly operating contactless payment and we will request that payment is made online or over the phone prior to you attending if you do not have a means of making contactless payment at the time of your visit. If your only option is a cash payment we request you bring cash in a sealed clear wipeable plastic bag – similar to a food bag or ones used in airports for liquids.
Arriving At The Practice
When travelling to the practice, we would recommend that you follow the government enforced social distancing measures as much as possible and when you arrive at the clinic please call 0207 486 8100 and do not attempt to enter the clinic until instructed to.
If travelling by car, please stay in your car once parked and call the practice to let the team know you are here. They will instruct you and let you know when your dentist is ready for you and a member of our team will meet you at the front door. Please attend alone and do not bring additional family members with you unless they are happy to wait in the car or outside the building with the exception of children and carers.
When you attend the practice, we ask you to limit personalise items such as bags, coats etc. and will ask for you to place any belongings in a box provided. This box will remain with a team member at reception under camera surveillance whilst you see your dentist.
A member of our team will also take your temperature with a no-touch thermometer. If your temperature is above 37.5°C, you will be unable to enter the practice and will be asked to return home and self-isolate as per current government guidelines.
We intend to eliminate clients waiting inside the practice and at reception therefore appointments will be staggered so that patients do not arrive or leave at the same time as other patients as far as we are able to manage.
When using the restroom, please do your best to ensure that you leave the facilities as you would expect to find them and wash your hands thoroughly following the hand sanitization instructions on display. Our restroom will be disinfected after use.
Once you have checked into the clinic we will ask the following –
- Use the hand sanitiser in the reception area or thoroughly wash your hands for 30 seconds with the antiseptic hand wash provided in the surgery
- We may ask you to use a hydrogen peroxide mouthwash before some dental treatments
- A rubber dam or other barrier mechanisms will be used for more procedures than previously
Clinic Procedures
The Welbeck Team have spent time precisely looking at every aspect of the practice with a view to removing all non-essential items that can potentially be the cause of infection such as magazines and refreshments. Bottled water will be available upon request.
All clinical and common areas including door handles and surfaces will be regularly disinfected in addition to our normal surface cleaning protocols between patients and where possible a member of our team will open and close doors for you.
Dental Procedures
All our team will be using PPE (personal protective equipment) in line with current recommendations and guidelines.
We are especially mindful that many dental treatments are aerosol-generating procedures (AGP’s). It is difficult for us to carry out some dental procedures without generation of some level of aerosol. Aerosol suspended in the air is a theoretical source of infection which we obviously wish to keep to a minimum.
Currently the dental literature suggests:
- Our use of our normal high-volume suction reduces aerosol production by over 90%.
- The use of dental rubber dam where possible reduces bio aerosols by a further 30 to 90%.
- Our regular surgical facemasks filter approximately 60% of remaining airborne particles.
- FFP2 and FFP3 masks filter 94% and 99% respectively of airborne particles in both directions (patient to clinician and clinician to patient).
We therefore feel that our normal dental procedures can be carried out with minimal risk by the use of high-volume suction, rubber dam, surgical and FFP2 masks and, in aerosol generating procedures FFP3 masks as appropriate.
Summary
Although things all feel so different right now, we are still the same amazing team here and as we always have aim to provide dental excellence and care to all clients old and new whilst responsibly ensuring the safety of you and our staff by minimising the risk of infection as much as we all possibly can.
These new polices and protocols will be reviewed regularly for the ever changing day to day life we find ourselves currently in.
On behalf of Dr Ilaty and all the team here at The Welbeck Clinic we thank you kindly in advance for your patience.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us on 0207 486 8100 or email us on info@thewelbeckclinic.co.uk.