New drill at dentist’s
You’ll queue in car, not waiting room (but no fillings till autumn)
FEW of us relish the prospect of sitting in the dentist’s waiting room ahead of a check-up, filling or extraction.
But coronavirus will put an end to the experience, as patients will have to sit in their cars or outside the building before appointments to avoid the risk of bringing infection into the surgery.
Cavity-filling is also unlikely to resume until the autumn unless it is an emergency, because using a drill could also spread coronavirus.
Surgeries will reopen in August – but only for acute and emergency care and using a one in, one out system.
Less urgent procedures and check-ups will restart in the autumn, stoking fears of a growing dental health crisis.
The Mail can also reveal that the nation’s 900 dental practices could be at the forefront of screening patients for Covid-19 using a new 20-minute test. If the patient is found to be free of the virus, then the dentist and their team will not have to wear full protective kit to treat them.
David McColl, chairman of the British Dental Association’s Scotland dental practice committee, said that, on average, surgeries dealt with up to 100 patients a day – but this would drop.
He added: ‘The plan is five in the morning and five in the afternoon, one in, one out. People would wait in their cars, we would get medical information from them there – the waiting room would be shut.
‘The plan is that with the new 20-minute test, dentists will be able to test for Covid-19, and it would be great if we could establish early on if the patient does or does not have the virus.’ Mr McColl said that it was not yet known whether patients would have to wear face masks as they walked into the surgery.
He pointed out difficulties obtaining enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for dentists as the NHS is planning for a possible second wave of the virus later this year. He said: ‘There’s a pretty wide acceptance there’s going to be a second peak, so the Government wants to hold back enough PPE for use in hospital services.’
He said that, in the meantime, people should focus on dental hygiene by brushing their teeth twice a day and limiting sugar consumption.
At present, 56 hubs are open for urgent and emergency dental treatments. Their workload will go up gradually while dental practices set up screens and hand sanitiser stations.
When surgeries start to reopen, it is likely only one dentist in a multi-dentist practice will go back to work initially, meaning if a dentist or a member of their team has to self-isolate, another dentist could take over. Mr McColl said this could cause problems for single-dentist practices who would have to close if hit by infection.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it ‘is actively considering the use of dental practices as part of the wider community testing programme’.