Dental organisations have joined forces to come up with return-to-work guidelines as the UK begins to ease itself out of lockdown.
The COVID-19 Future Planning Task Group aims to represent all dental care professionals so that the entire team can contribute to the guidance.
Set up by the Faculty of General Dental Practice UK and College of General Dentistry, it has brought together a spectrum of other organisations including:
- British Dental Association
- British Association of Private Dentistry
- Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
- Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
- Association of Dental Implantology
The group supports a safe return to practice as soon as possible, with a focus on developing practical solutions and aiding national planning strategies.
It will also involve patient representation and use professional experience in a selection of areas to inform its guidance.
These include practice management, infection prevention and control and emergency medicine during the pandemic.
The group acknowledges it will carry financial implications on both the NHS and privates practices. To ensure a return to safe treatment, it states a need for an increase in public funding.
Return to practice
Following indications the country is slowly reopening, the association has launched its BAPD return to practice position paper.
It brings together evidence for members to use when deciding whether to return to clinical practice.
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