We’ve gone from 150 patients in a day to only twelve
YeSTerDAY was the first day back under the new guidelines at Alpha Dental Care in Catterick, North Yorkshire, for dentist Mike Turner.
It started like any other working day for Dr Turner: a quick cup of tea, followed by a staff ‘huddle’ at 8.45am to discuss the patient list for the day.
But there have been significant changes in the way he operates. The practice has six surgeries, but it is allowed only two dentists treating patients. And, due to Government Covid-19 guidelines, those two dentists have to leave their surgeries to ‘fallow’ after every appointment.
The room is sealed and can’t be used for up to an hour after a patient has left, to allow time for any airborne virus droplets to dissipate.
As a result, this NhS practice’s capacity for appointments has dropped from up to 150 a day, to 12.
At 10am, the first patient arrived and was met by a ‘runner’ nurse. The patient had to use hand sanitiser and a face mask. They were then taken directly to the surgery, where Dr Turner was waiting, wearing gloves, a mask, eye protection and a visor. After the patient’s tooth extraction, the surgery was sealed off.
Since it wasn’t an aerosol generating procedure, the surgery remained fallow for the minimum time of 20 minutes, before a nurse went in to clean it for the next patient.
‘I then had to go to the doffing room to take off my PPe, and then a separate surgery to type up my patient notes,’ says Dr Turner.
his next patient needed root canal work. ‘We had to don the next level of PPe for this, as it’s an aerosolgenerating procedure.’ he wore a PPF3 mask (said to trap the tiniest of virus droplets), gloves, gown, eyewear, visor and hair net. Afterwards, the room was sealed for an hour.
For his third appointment, Dr Turner needed a full new set of PPe, and again the surgery was sealed afterwards.
‘It is very hot in all the PPe,’ he says. ‘The cost is probably £25 to £30 per patient, as it’s for myself and a nurse. We don’t get more money from the NhS.’ (The few private patients the practice has are on payment plans, and the practice does not intend to increase the charges.)
By the end of the day, Dr Turner had seen only six patients, around a tenth of the usual daily number. ‘There will be a huge backlog because we can’t see as many patients,’ he says. ‘The waiting list for routine care will be massively increased.’