Dental Services: Coronavirus
(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the dental industry on the steps required to reintroduce safe routine dental operations after the covid-19 lockdown is lifted.
To meet the Government social distancing measures and to contain the spread of COVID-19 all routine dentistry was suspended at the start of the pandemic.
NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28 May that National Health Service dentistry outside urgent care centres will begin to gradually restart from 8 June where practices assess that they have the necessary personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control. The aim is to increase levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.
A copy of the letter that was published can be found at the following link:
We still expect all NHS dental practices to provide urgent telephone advice and triage. Dentists are giving urgent advice remotely and, if needed, prescriptions for painkillers or antibiotics. All urgent face to face treatment that is clinically necessary will still be available for patients who are triaged by their dentist or NHS 111 into one of over 600 urgent dental care centres set up by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
To ensure the safety of all dental care professionals and patients NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer have published the latest standard operating procedure guidance.
This can be found at the following link:
The Chief Dental Officer held four workshops with a range of representatives from across the dental sector over the last month. Discussions focussed on issues around the safe delivery of dentistry and principles of resumption of wider services. These discussions included the British Dental Association (BDA) and NHS England and NHS Improvement officials also had a number of separate meetings with the BDA.