Dental Professionals May Be Immune To The ‘Pingdemic’

Dental Professionals May Be Immune To The ‘Pingdemic’

Dental health professionals may find that they won’t have to succumb to the effects of the ‘pingdemic’ currently wreaking havoc in the general UK economy.

The Sun has reported that a million people have been ‘pinged’ by the NHS COVID-19 App in just one week.  

The newspaper said “A pingdemic is sweeping the nation, with pubs, factories, hospitals and airports being forced to shut because of staff isolations.”

“The NHS Test and Trace App  ordered a record 520,194 to stay home in just one July week, a 46% rise on the previous seven days. 

Two million UK residents are thought to be stuck at home, the paper reported.

In an update from England Chief Dental Officer Sara Hurley and the Director of Primary Care for NHS England, Ed Waller, dental staff were told that they may be able to continue to work and not be forced to self-isolate if contacted by the track and trace device.

The update said “We are writing with further information on the Government’s announcement that if there is a likelihood that staff absence creates a significant risk to the health or safety of patients, health staff whose activities are critical to the on-going provision of care and who have been identified as a contact of a case of COVID-19 may be able to attend work rather than self-isolate if they are fully vaccinated (more than 14 days after the second dose).”

A letter circulated to dental workers from The NHS Chief Nursing Officer, Chief People Officer and National Medical Director read “if there is a risk that staff absence would lead to potential patient harm then staff who are fully vaccinated (14 days post second dose) may be brought back to work ahead of the self-isolation period following the completion of a local risk assessment.”

The letter said that safeguards would need to be implemented, including an immediate negative PCR test of the dental worker prior to returning to work, and daily lateral flow device test for a minimum of 7 days. 

Staff would have to report the results to Test and Trace and senior staff members or managers.

The letter said “Employers should take all reasonable steps to ensure the vaccine status of the employee and compliance with these safeguards.”

“Staff should access testing through normal mechanisms. It is important to note that any staff who are able to return to work following these risk assessments must adhere to legal isolation requirements at all other times i.e. when not at or travelling to work.”

The full text of the letter can be found here.

The CDO’s update also referred to a letter  written by Health Minister Jo Churchill to NHS dental practices, asking that they keep their NHS profiles up to date. 

Dr Hurley said “We ask that you do this as a matter of priority.”

The letter said although access to NHS dentistry had improved, there was still a need to increase access.

The letter said that a patient’s “Main source of information when looking for an NHS dentist is from the nhs.uk website.”

“The website lists dental practices and provides information on practices taking on new NHS patients. Although there are many practices that are updating their information regularly on the nhs.uk page there are also many profiles that are not up to date.”

“We are therefore writing to ask you collectively to please review your information on the nhs.uk website in order to help patients find information about available care more easily.”

The letter from Ms Churchill, issued by the  Business Services Authority, can be accessed here.

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