We are very much looking forward to having patients back at EPD and being able to look after you again.

The safety of you and our staff is of paramount importance. Fortunately, cross infection control is second nature to us and we are already masters of keeping our surgery environment clean and safe. We are, however, having to carefully plan the movement of patients through the building and in the communal areas to allow social distancing and we will need to bring in significant changes here.

We will begin to see patients face to face again from Monday 8th June and there will be a phased return in the treatments we are offering.

Phase 1 Emergency appointments only. Initially, we will be seeing those patients who have had a dental problem during the lockdown period that were not able to see in person until now and any new dental emergencies that arise. We will be contacting patients with previous problems in order of priority to book them in.

Please do not attend the practice without an appointment. All emergencies will still be telephone triaged where a dentist will discuss your dental problem with you over the phone and book you in where necessary. This will be continuing for the foreseeable future as we need to review all medical histories before appointments can be booked, to protect those who are at risk or vulnerable.

We will be booking lightly in this first week as we work on essential staff training and run our new protocols to check the flow through the practice. We will only be running two surgeries; 1 downstairs and 1 upstairs, to keep the number of people in the building to a minimum and avoid the need to use the waiting rooms. We will have limited appointments available in this first week so please bear with us during this period.

If you have an appointment during this time we will be contacting you directly and giving you information on what to expect during your visit.

Phase 2 We hope to progress to this phase soon which will include routine treatment including dental health checks and non-aerosol generating procedures (non-AGPs). An AGP is any treatment where a fine water spray is produced so in phase 2 we will be avoiding doing such treatments.

Phase 3 This is when we will be able to begin to provide AGPs again. There are a number of factors that will determine when we can move to this phase including acquiring the correct, additional PPE that is now required (and this is currently not easy to come by) and the national coronavirus alert level that the country is currently sitting at.

We will continue to keep you updated as we progress through the phases and look forward to seeing you soon.

Jo, Chris and the EPD Team