Our practice has been working with NHS commissioners and Local Dental Committees across the region to consider how we can safely reopen the from 8 June. A number of options are being considered to ensure this can be done safely for staff and patients. Whilst the Chief Dental Officer has given 8 June as a date for dental services to start to think about reopening, unfortunately we are not in a position to reopen just yet.

We are working hard behind the scenes to secure PPE/IPC in place, and we will update you here when we are ready to open our practice for face to face appointments.

• If you are in pain or need of support and need help or advice, please continue to contact us by telephone to the practice. Please don’t attend in person without an appointment.

When we open for face to face appointments, our practice operating procedures will be different as we will be working in a way that observes COVID-19 social distancing and hygiene rules.

The range of treatments you will be offered may be different to that you received before 25th March 2020 and may vary from practice to practice. This will depend on the staff and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available to us at the time. In the initial phase, we will be starting with urgent dental care provision with non-aerosol generating procedures only. Each patient will be assessed and, in some cases, may need to be referred to an Urgent Dental Centres.

The dental team may also be wearing different protective equipment to what you are used to seeing.

It will likely be some months before the services return to providing care in a similar manner to that which you previously experienced and will be dependent on the further easing of COVID-19 control measures.

Please remember that we are still here, at your disposal to help the best we can. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have a dental problem.

Thank you for your support.

We wish you all good health in these unprecedented times.

With best wishes,

St Raphael’s Dental Practice Team