April 6, 2020
The Chief Dental Officer, Sara Hurley, held a webinar on Friday 3rd April attended by almost 11,000 people. Three preparedness letters have been issued with a further note due early this week. We have summarised some key points for you to download here.
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Alternatively, you can read the summary below.
A. Key points
- The Four Nations have been working together over the last few weeks and have taken the unprecedented step to stop all routine dental work
- Payment for activity 19/20 – confirmed to calculate April to end Feb and use March 18/19
- Practices with a mix of NHS and private provision; this arrangement only applies to the NHS proportion of work (will be made clear in the next letter)
- 20/21 – work to principles of maintaining cashflow to practices; staff to be available to offer services in urgent dental care provision or other NHSE services
- Claims and operational activity when paused – no expectation of UDA claims expected but need to capture activity in hubs
B. Redeployment
- Hospital dental workforce are expected to make themselves available to their trusts
- Redeployment mapping has been undertaken
- 13,000 people from the dental workforce have shown a willingness to be redeployed
- GDC support people to take on different roles within current competency levels
- There are questions around indemnity, remuneration and contracts still to be answered
- Everyone needs to have induction and guidance within the framework
- An NHS performer list number is required for dentists to provide support in healthcare. NHSE is not currently processing applications for non-NHS dentists to obtain a performers list number
- Willing dental professionals may still complete the volunteer link on the website
C. Dental Treatment
- Regional urgent care centres will be set up by regional leads based on the current provision of dental hospital and geography
- Dental teams should provide telephone support to their patients and can use the remote prescribing protocol
- Practices may choose to work collaboratively with local practices where they would ordinarily work independently
- Unless authorised to do so, you must not provide face to face dental treatment. CQC will seek assurances that you are safe and well-led if you are doing so
D. PPE
- Anyone carrying out aerosol-generating procedure must do so within a designated site and wear a fit-tested FFP3 mask