What we are doing to protect your health at Avenue Road Dental
During the period of lock-down the team at Avenue Road Dental Practice have stayed very busy.
When you come back into the practice you’ll notice some changes but we’ve made other improvements that you won’t find so obvious.
These are some of the things we have done:
The Reception area has been cleared. All unnecessary items have been removed. Unfortunately, that also includes the joke books but hopefully some day they’ll come back!
All our wicker furniture and fabric covered chairs have been removed and replaced with items which can more easily be disinfected. A screen has been placed on the reception desk to protect patients and staff where social-distancing is difficult. An intercom is being installed outside the front door so that patients as well as delivery and other visitors can communicate with us on their arrival.
An area has been reserved for patients to change into protective clothing including face masks as well as undergoing temperature checks and affirming their Covid status before advancing further into the building.
We have purchased walkie-talkies for team members to be able to communicate with each other in different rooms without the need to make unnecessary journeys through the building.
We are making the practice as paper-free as possible to again reduce infection risk through the transfer of documents.
All dental procedures involving the production of an aerosol (the mist of spray which comes up when drills or ultrasonic scalers are used) will be carried out in Treatment Room 1 for the time being. This room is being equipped with an air-exchanger so the room air can be evacuated and replaced between patients as well as an anti-microbial fogger to disinfect all parts of the room after appointments. In addition to using these items we will also be continuing to carry out our routine stringent decontamination procedures as well as our extensive use of disposable equipment for each appointment.
Clinical team members have successfully completed fit-testing to enable the wearing of special face masks which significantly reduce the risk of infection between clinician and patient. We’ve also invested in a great deal of other protective equipment including robes, aprons and face visors.
Collectively we’ve taken many hours of on-line postgraduate education to be sure we really stay up to date with the latest information and we’ve developed numerous check-lists and audits to ensure nothing gets left to chance.
We’re very confident the measures we have taken really make our practice a very safe place to be and look forward to welcoming you back as our range of services increases over the coming weeks.