COVID-19: CDO (England) update on dentistry in new lockdown
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- Published: Tuesday, 03 November 2020 08:47
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CDO (England) has confirmed that the advice given by GDPUK on dentistry following the Prime Minister’s announcement of further restrictions was correct. Sara Hurley confirmed that ‘practices should remain open to treat patients in line with the standard operating procedure and with regard to the recently updated national infection prevention control dental appendix.’
This advice was confirmed by the CDO in a bulletin available to all dentists. It also contained a reminder that she will also hosting a webinar this Thursday 5th November at 16:30 on the recent infection prevention control guidelines.
Additionally, she drew attention to Friday’s decision by the Secretary of State to temporary suspend the need for patients to sign prescription, dental and ophthalmic forms for a period of 5 months to 31 March 2021. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has approved a temporary measure in England to help limit the transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) by suspending the need for patients to sign prescription, dental and ophthalmic forms for a period of 5 months to 31 March 2021. This is to avoid cross contamination and help minimise the handling of paperwork when collecting medicines or receiving dental and eye care.
She also drew attention to the recently published Dental Appendix to the UK infection prevention control guidance - issued jointly by the Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England the devolved nations’ public health authorities contains the necessary detail to keep your patients, your teams and yourself safe. You can read the guidance in full online here.
The guidance addresses one of the key challenges facing dental practices; the duration of the post Aerosol Generating Procedure (AGP) downtime. The guidance details the variable duration of the post AGP downtime, with detail of the required mitigating measures and ventilation parameters. In summary where a surgery’s ventilation system can achieve 6 to 9 Air Changes/Hour (ACH), a baseline post AGP downtime of 20 minutes is recommended. Where there are 10 or more ACH, a baseline post AGP downtime of 15 minutes is recommended.
As detailed in the UK IPC Guidance for dental settings FFP3 masks are recommended for AGP procedures. As recommended in the main IPC guidance on page 41, “FFP3 and loose fitting powered hoods provide the highest level of protection and are recommended when caring for patients in areas where high risk aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) are being performed. Where the risk assessment shows an FFP2 respirator is suitable, they are recommended as a safe alternative”.
This means that as there are existing stocks of FFP2 masks, it is understood that it may be necessary for practices to continue to use these until staff are successfully fit tested and supplied with the appropriate FFP3.
Sara Hurley is holding a webinar on how infection prevention control and the new fallow time requirements are due to work in dental settings. She will be joined by representatives from Public Health England and our Deputy Chief Dental Officers Eric Rooney and Jason Wong. The webinar will last approximately an hour. Click this link to register. Once you have registered for the webinar you will be sent a link to join.
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