Welcome to The Dental Connection

The Dental Connection remains open in the forthcoming lockdown to provide an essential healthcare service.

To confirm, there are no restrictions with regards to medical/dental treatments and therefore you are actively encouraged to keep your appointments.

Please note that routine dental treatment is essential treatment. Your oral health is important and screening for oral disease including oral cancer is essential, hence routine care will continue including examination, hygiene and treatment appointments.

During the first lockdown we spent months getting our practices COVID safe, with measures including:

1. A robust triaging policy to ensure the safety of both patients and staff.
2. Face fit testing on FFP2/3 masks.
3. Enhanced PPE.
4. Installation of air filtration equipment.
5. Continued High standards in cross infection control.
6. Clinical safety protocols implemented and followed.

This has enabled us to create a safe and secure environment in which to provide a full range of dental health care in this second lockdown.

If you are worried about your attendance please contact us to discuss your concerns and we can always postpone your treatment till a later date.

Please contact reception via phone on 020 8744 1944 or email at ctwickenham@aol.com

Please do not be concerned as we continue to maintain high standards of cross infection control as always.

Stay safe and please contact us if you have any questions.

We hope this message finds you and your family in good health. Our community has been through a lot during this pandemic and all of us are looking forward to resuming some form of our normal habits and routines. Whilst many things have changed one thing has remained the same - our commitment to your safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority for our practices and you may have seen this during your visits to our surgery. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it's both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.You may see some changes when it is time for your appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff.

For example:

• Our practice will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You'll be asked those same questions again when you are in the practice or you will receive an online screening list of questions to streamline your practice arrival.
• We have a hand sanitiser at the reception area that we will ask you to use when you enter the practice. You will also find some in other areas in the practice for you to use as needed.
• You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines or water service since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you're offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
• We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.
• We ask you to arrive on time for your appointment.
• We will ask that you come to your appointment wearing a mask or scarf/bandanas to cover your mouth and nose and please bring your own pen for any forms that you may be required to complete.
• Please note that we request that the bathroom is ONLY used for emergencies.

Your visit will also include the following extra precautions for your safety:

1. Personalised arrival procedures to guide you from your car directly to treatment rooms to eliminate contacting surfaces.
2. Maintain distancing in the reception area for essential caregivers and parents of minors if they cannot wait in a vehicle or outside the practice.
3. Installed sneeze guards or droplet barriers at reception area.
4. Require hand sanitising before all appointments by our patients.
5. Introduce an oral pre-rinse by all patients to reduce exposure to germs.
6. Record temperature of every patient upon entering the practice.
7. Record temperature of every team member each day at beginning and end of work day.
8. Payment arrangements in advance to avoid delay and allow contactless exit from the appointment.
9. Enhanced operatory disinfection procedures of all surfaces between patients.
10. New personal protection equipment like visors, gowns and masks for our dentists and team to provide barriers against the smallest germs.
11. Medical grade HEPA air filters to ensure the highest level of air quality in our surgery rooms.
12. Enhanced nightly disinfection procedures of equipment and office fixtures like computers, keyboards, telephones, chairs, door handles and buttons that may be touched unconsciously.
13. Disinfection of all outside mail and packages that enter the building.
14. Longer appointment times for you to prepare and complete all appointment tasks and duties in the safest and most comprehensive manner.

We look forward to seeing you again and meeting you (if it's your first visit with us) and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you and every patient safe in our practice.

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming you back to our patients, neighbours and friends.