CDO issues guidance on re-opening practices, but not ‘business as usual’
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- Published: Friday, 05 June 2020 09:05
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The Chief Dental Officer for England has issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) outlining what action should be taken when dental practices re-open, just days before face to face care is resumed. But the BDA has warned that there will be no return to ‘business as usual’.
The Standard Operating Procedure: Transition to recovery[i] is described as a ‘phased transition’ for dental practices towards the ‘resumption of the full range of dental provision’.
But the BDA has said that a poll of its members showed that only 36% of practices plan to re-open on Monday. They have identified a shortage of PPE as one of the major challenges to re-opening with only a third of practices saying they have enough to provide face-to-face care.
The SOP says that during the initial resumption of dental services, the ‘expectation’ is for practice based urgent dental care provision, with flexibility for practices to do what is best for their patients. The subsequent pace of progression towards the resumption of the full range of routine dental care, including aerosol generating procedures, “will need to be risk-managed by the individual practice and will be subject to following the necessary IPC and PPE requirements”.
The guidance continues:
“Central to the phased transition of dental services and the resumption of all service provision is the acknowledged clinical judgement of practitioners and their ability to risk manage the delivery of dental care”. It adds that the document is designed to provide supporting guidance for the initial transition from recommencing face to face care towards the full resumption of dental care services; ‘a practice-led, progressive approach’.
The SOP also adds that limitations in AGPs present an opportunity to re-think the profession’s approach to care pathways. It says: “In electing to undertake face-to-face dental care, minimising AGPs and the decision to defer functional and reconstructive work will need to be central to treatment planning. In supporting practitioners to adopt the clinically sound option to stabilise ahead of restoration, the principles are summarised and supported by the Note for Avoidance of Doubt: Provision of Phased Treatments.[ii] This approach looks like becoming the ‘new normal’ for NHS dental care.
[i] https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/dental-standard-operating-procedure-transition-to-recovery/
[ii] https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/avoidance-of-doubt-provision-of-phased-treatments-v20.pdf
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