Before your dental appointment

The day before your appointment, one of our lovely reception team will try to give you a call. This call will be to check your appointment time, clarify that you can still attend and to run through some Covid screening questions. This will consist of questions such as: Have you been asked to self isolate? Do you have a temperature or fever? Have you been in contact with anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19?

After confirming you are fit and well to attend your dentist appointment, the reception team will then run through the rest of your appointment journey with you. Please do not worry if we have to reschedule your appointment due to having any signs/symptoms or being in contact with anyone who has Covid-19; we are here to provide you with a safe visit and will happily accommodate any changes you may need.

Attending the practice

When you attend the practice, we please ask that you attend alone where possible, with little possessions, and wearing a face covering or visor to protect both yourself, our team and other patients. When you come into the practice, there are hand sanitisation stations (the first is on the left of the entrance door, and others are located on the reception desk). You are welcome to come into the reception area, where we have made a safe, socially distanced area for you to take a seat inside. We have three different waiting areas available, to ensure that patients are always well distanced, and there is always a quieter area should you wish to distance yourself further. Alternatively, we are very happy for patients to wait in their vehicle, or outside the practice until their appointment time, where someone will come and collect them to bring them straight through to the surgery.

We are also very happy to try and accommodate vulnerable patients who must attend the practice, by changing their appointment times to the first or last appointment of day, and before lunch times to ensure the practice is as quiet as possible to make you feel comfortable.

To ensure that we are able to control cross infection, and helping the environment as much as possible, we have now changed to electronic Clinipads. The Clinipads replace any paper we previously needed you to sign within the practice, such as medical histories and consent forms for treatment. The reception team will pass you a Clinipad to complete if required, and you can rest assured that these are fully sanitised between patients, and far more hygienic than any paper copies we previously held and pens! The team are always happy to help with any queries and problems you may have, don’t be afraid to ask.

The team are always constantly busy cleaning and sanitising the doors, chairs, card machines, Clinipads and reception desk in the waiting areas, to ensure that everyone’s safety is priority.

Entering the dental surgery

Your dentist, hygienist or nurse will call you from the waiting areas when they are ready for you, they may be wearing something different to what you previously saw them wearing.

Within the surgery the dentist, hygienist and nurse will now typically be seen wearing a face mask, visor and apron for any routine appointments that do not produce an aerosol spray (we call these a non-AGP (non-aerosol generating procedure)). For aerosol generating procedures (AGP’s), such as a filling or root canal treatment, they now have to don a full respirator, gown and eye protection. The respirators and gowns can appear slightly daunting, but we promise that they have the same smiling faces underneath, ready to help you with any concerns and ensure you leave happy!

Once you leave the surgery, the dental nurse works hard to ensure every surface is fully disinfected and cleaned, ready for the next patient.

If you have attended for an AGP, the surgery must be left to fallow and complete a number of air changes to ensure any aerosol spray has settled and the air has been neutralised. We have managed to speed up this process by ensuring excellent extraction based ventilation within each surgery; this then allows the air changes and neutralisation to occur quicker, meaning we can accommodate more appointments and ensure we can see you as soon as possible!

Once these air changes have been completed, the nurse can then re-enter the surgery and disinfect all surface, ensuring everything has been thoroughly cleaned and ready for the next patient.

Leaving the surgery

When you leave the surgery, the friendly reception team will be waiting for you to complete any forms on the Clinipad and settle up any appointments and payments before you leave.

They will check for any feedback on how your appointment was, and if you were happy.

We hope that by making the practice as hygienic and comfortable as possible, we can reduce any anxiety you may have about attending your appointments at this uncertain time.

We do however completely understand any patients that may wish to reschedule appointments due to the pandemic, and hope to see you in the not so distant future, safe and well!

If you need a dentist in Scarborough, you know where we are, stay safe and we’ll see you soon.