24 Jul Reopening the Dental Barn

To be honest I was a bit apprehensive about returning to work at the Dental Barn. I wasn’t worried that we couldn’t do the dentistry, because I absolutely knew we could. But the problem was how were we going to manage all the new things that we have to do and still have the same calm and relaxed feel to the practice. How would patients feel about all the new things and how could we explain that we couldn’t do things as we done them in the past.

As usual I needn’t have worried as everything has worked out just as we planned and trained for. It’s been hard to make everything feel really safe for everybody and still keep our loveliness. I’m a bit of a pain when it comes to doing things properly, that’s why I needed to make sure that when we trained as a team, everybody knew exactly what job to do and what they needed to do. As usual my super star team made that possible.

I can’t tell you how much positive feedback we’ve had. Our process is so ‘slick’ that we get people in and out of the building without them even seeing another patient. They also know that we are the same people underneath all the PPE. We’ve been told that people are really glad that they’re back and that their mouths have been wanting our great care.

Lots of patients have asked how we are all feeling and we know they genuinely care about how safe we are at the practice.

We have seen most of the patients now who had emergencies in lockdown. There are some treatments we are still unable to do, but they will return as time goes on.

A patient let me into a secret, that she’d always wondered whether she really did need to come for three monthly hygienist maintenance. Interestingly she missed her three monthly appointment due to lockdown and she now is absolutely convinced that the three monthly hygiene is a necessary for her. She said her mouth hasn’t felt this horrible for a long time and she realises now how comfortable and super-clean her mouth feels normally.

So for anybody out there who may be worried about returning to have dental treatment, I assure you we are doing great stuff to look after everybody. Don’t be frightened to ask questions, don’t be frightened to ring and ask what we are doing to keep you safe because as you know we’ll be happy to help you.

All I can tell you is that our team and our patients are glad to be back.