Dear Patient,

As you may be aware, we have only been seeing patients for emergencies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 as mandated by Central Government. We are delighted to announce that as of the 8^th June 2020 we opened in a reduced capacity with certain limitations still in place for everyone’s safety. However as restrictions are gradually eased over the next few weeks, we hope things will return to something resembling normality with respect to the dental services we can provide.

Our community has been through a lot over the past few months, and all of us are looking forward to supporting all our patients. While many things have changed, one thing that remains the same is our commitment to your care and safety.

You would have noticed in your previous visits that infection control has always been a top priority for our practice. With the current situation in mind, we want to tell you about the added measures being taken to keep our patients and staff as safe as possible.

Our practice follows infection control recommendations made by the Department of health and social care – Health Technical Memorandum 01-05, as well as the Standard Operating Procedures. To ensure that we are up to date on any new clinical guidance, we also follow the advice of the, Care Quality Commission, Public Health England, the British Dental Association, and the General Dental Council.

You may notice some changes at your next appointment which have been made to help protect our patients and staff. For example:

• Please attend alone unless there are exceptional circumstances
• We will contact you before your appointment to ask some screening questions. You will be asked those same questions again when you enter the practice.
• We have hand sanitiser that you must use when entering the practice, this will be followed by asking you to also wash your hands in the washroom facilities.
• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing, as well as a full a decontamination clean of the practice between patients. This might mean that we can offer fewer options for scheduling your appointment and there may be some delays before we can call you into the surgery.
• When you arrive please give us a call (Either from your car or out with the premises) a few minutes before your scheduled appointment. We will then call you back to notify you when you are required to enter the surgery. This is done to ensure that we limit the number of patients in the waiting room at any given time thus ensuring that social distancing measures are adhered to as much as possible.
• Staff will be wearing additional protective clothing including filtration masks, visors, aprons, gloves
• There may be a modest increase in the fees for certain treatments to allow for the use of additional PPE that we have had to procure and must use during the time being.

We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice. To make an appointment, please call the practice or visit our website.

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbours, and friends.

Sincerely,

The Team at Zental