Coronavirus: Dental Services
(asked on 18th March 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the spread of covid-19 in dental practice settings.
The Chief Dental Officer with NHS England and NHS Improvement has published detailed guidance on minimising spread of COVID-19 to dentists or patients. The series started on 20 March, including standard operating practice which was published on 15 April.
This, along with the guidance from Public Health England on levels of personal protective equipment (PPE) required for dental procedures that are aerosol generating, has given dentists detailed advice on how dentistry can be safely delivered during the peak pandemic period.
NHS dentists were instructed to suspend all routine dentistry to meet social distancing guidelines and reduce the spread of Covid-19. All NHS dental practices are required to provide telephone advice, prescriptions if needed and triage on to urgent dental centres for patients with urgent treatment needs.
The series of guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care/dental-practice/
NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28th May that NHS dentistry outside urgent care centres could begin to restart from 8th June with the aim of increasing levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.
A copy of the letter that was published can be found at the following link: