Coronavirus Dental Advice

(we do not charge extra for any of this)

With all the additional Covid-19 measures Dental Practices in the UK have to conform to, we are doing everything we can to continue to look after the Dental Health of our valued Patients, to the highest standards possible, with their utmost safety and health in mind, including :

• Patient Triage
  Patients are phoned before their appointment, to ask some Covid-19 related questions.
  We aim to not bring any Covid-19 into the Practice, to protect our Patients and staff.
• Entry & Exit
  Please enter from the Rear door, straight into the Waiting Room. Exit via the front door.
  We ask that you arrive wearing a Face Covering (we can give you one if you don’t have one), and use the provided Hand Gel to disinfect your hands. Do not arrive early, to minimise time in our Waiting Room.
• Social Distancing measures in place
  We have reduced the number of surgeries, to just two available at any one time.
  This means you should not be sharing our waiting room (for long) with more than one patient, if at all.
  We have installed glass panels at the Reception Desks
• Lateral Flow Tests
  All our staff carry out Lateral Flow Tests twice a week to ensure we are Covid-free
• PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
  Our Reception staff wear masks
  Our Dentists, Hygienist and Dental Nurses all wear masks and visors when seeing patients
  Our Dentists, Hygienist and Dental Nurses all wear special respirator hoods and gowns, when treating patients with aerosol generating procedures (eg. use of our drills or scalers).
  Your dental treatment is the same as before, we just wear more PPE !
• Ventilation
  To rapidly remove any dental aerosols, and make the surgeries safe to use again, after each treatment :
  We installed additional, powerful extractor fans, increasing ventilation to 15 (or more) Air Exchanges per Hour (the UK & Scottish Government Covid-19 recommendations is 10 Air Changes per Hour).
  We installed special grills in the surgery doors to allow fresh replacement air to enter the rooms.
• Decontamination
  Cross Infection Control has always been extremely important, even before Covid-19.
  After Dental treatment, the surgery is left with the extractor fans still on, continuing to remove the last remnants of dental aerosols in the air. The surgery remains unused for a minimum of a 20 minutes “Fallow Time” after treatment creating aerosols has stopped. Only after that point, is it deemed safe for our skilled, trained & GDC registered Dental Nurses, to thoroughly clean and decontaminate the room.

This “Fallow Time” when the surgery cannot be used is a major issue for many Dental Practices if they don’t have spare surgeries to move into – and this seriously reduces the number of patients they can see in a day. However, at the JLR O’Donnell Dental Practice, we do have spare surgeries and are not so affected by these measures. We also have sufficient spare staff to have the surgeries ready to use again, by the time we need them.