Dental Services: Coronavirus

(asked on 4th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if the Government will allow the reopening of dental practices in line with the reopening of non-essential shops as covid-19 restrictions are eased.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 8th July 2020

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 could 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:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/Urgent-dental-care-letter-28-May.pdf

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 centres set up by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

To support dentists and teams to reopen safely NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer have published a standard operating procedure covering the recovery transition.

This can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/dental-standard-operating-procedure-transition-to-recovery/

Reticulating Splines