Dentists get back to their drill in the Highlands
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Dental practices in the Highlands have been able to start welcoming back patients for routine check-ups as restrictions ease.
Inverness's Inshes and Torwood practices, as well as Glencoe Dental Centre and Fort William’s M&S Dental, which are all part of Clyde Munro Dental Group, had been open for emergency treatments but have now resumed routine patient examinations after four months, following the recent announcement from Scotland’s Chief Dental Officer.
Delighted staff have already started working through the backlog of patient appointments which were cancelled or postponed since lockdown began.
Dr Jacqui Frederick, group clinical d rector at Clyde Munro said: “As a group, we’ve been able to share knowledge, advice and protocols to enable us to safely open all of our practices to some non-emergency treatment.
“Our respective teams across Scotland have been waiting for this moment for months and are delighted to have patients back through the door. Every practice has had extensive social distancing and hygiene procedures put in place throughout.
“In the month since we were able to resume emergency treatments in NHS practices, we have refined all of those procedures. Now our entire workforce are extremely comfortable in how to make the process as simple and easy as possible for patients, while keeping them safe.”
However, Dr Frederick urged patients to avoid calling either practice to request a check-up or routine appointment.
While continuing to treat emergency cases, the next priority is to rearrange those routine appointments originally scheduled between March and July, which were cancelled due to lockdown.
She added: “We understand we have many patients throughout the country who are very keen to resume their care, but we’d ask them to please bear with us. Our first priority is to get in touch with all patients whose appointments were cancelled.
“We want to assure all of our patients that we will get to them for their routine check-ups as quickly as possible and that they will be able to get treatment if they have urgent dental problems”
“It’s also important for us to make patients aware that when they do arrive at the practice, it will be different from what they have experienced during their previous visits.”
The team worked to ensure that every practice was ready to reopen on day one in June for emergency treatments.
Those attending the practice are asked to observe a range of safety procedures which include, filling in forms digitally before attending, using on site sanitising stations, observing strict social distancing, following a one-way system and paying by contactless methods where possible.
Clyde Munro was founded by Jim Hall in 2015 with the acquisition of seven practices. Since then, it has enjoyed rapid growth through acquisition and has plans to continue expanding.
It now comprises 40 practices across Scotland, with more than 200 dentists, 350 staff and 300,000 patients.
The group’s ambition is to become Scotland’s “local dentist”, operating an expanding network of family dentists across Scotland, with each devoted to providing the best dental care, while reflecting the needs and character of its community.
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