26 / 03 / 2020
Behind the Scenes
To Our Dear and Valued Patients
Another week has passed by since our last newsletter and we hope that you, your families and loved ones are all safe and well. Tuesday was a special day for us as it was the 5th Birthday of our youngest daughter, Amalia. Her birthday this year was extra special in that we could spend the whole day together as a family, as there was no school, and my wife and I were not a work, which our daughter loved.
On the other side, it was also difficult for her not to share the day with her grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins and friends. This was another reminder of just how difficult these times are for everyone, and at the same time highlighting what is truly important in life, which for us is our health, family, friends and loved ones.
what is truly important in life, which for us is our health, family, friends and loved ones
It has been another busy week for us ‘behind the scenes’ working on our plans and strategies for unpausing the Practice and returning to work once we are given the green light to be able to see patients again ‘face-to-face’.
being proactive, we have managed to secure enhanced PPE, to ensure that our patients and our team and fully protected
We are pleased to report, that by being proactive, we have managed to secure enhanced PPE, to ensure that our patients and our team and fully protected when we do eventually return to work. Some of the new enhanced PPE has already arrived, with the remainder due to arrive next week.
The way our Practice will run in the future will naturally have to change
We have also been busy rewriting our new “Standard Operations Procedure” for when we do return to work, to ensure the upmost safety of our patients and team members at all times. The way our Practice will run in the future will naturally have to change, at least in the short to medium term.
Rest assured though that our focus of providing high quality care and attention will not change, nor will our drive to further our cause of improving the health and well-being of as many patients as we can, in a safe, comfortable and caring environment. Once this has been finalised we will be training our staff to ensure they are well versed in the new operating procedures, and we will also share details of these with you too.
Following on from the last newsletter, the health of your gums is the foundation to your overall oral health, and therefore it will be important we focus on this on our return. With this mind, we feel the majority of our patients will need additional hygiene appointments to re-establish their oral health. Therefore we will be allowing patients to ‘swap’ one of their health check appointments for an additional hygiene appointment.
For example, if you normally have 2 health check appointments and 2 hygiene appointments a year as part of your membership, we could change this to 1 health check appointment and 3 hygiene appointments instead for the year to help you get your gum health back on track.
To keep our team moral continue we touch base with one another daily and have now started a weekly “Virtual DCP Pub Quiz” every Sunday via Zoom. Our dentist Sinem won the first quiz which was hosted by us.
In turn she was sent a gift in the post, and had the honour of hosting the next one. Last Sunday our clinical denture technician Phil was the winner, and we are all eagerly waiting this Sunday for the next quiz night which Phil will be hosting. There are couple of pictures on this at the end of the newsletter.
saved our ‘vulnerable’ patients from leaving their house, and restored their ability to eat and drink
Our determination to help is unwavering and my wife and we continue to provide our emergency service 7 days a week from 9.30am to 8pm, helping our members with advice, antibiotics and temporary fillings kits. Phil has also been very supportive to our patients who have had problems with their dentures.
A problem with a denture can make it very difficult to eat and drink. Phil has gone above and beyond for some of our patients, by collecting broken dentures from the patients house, repairing them in his lab, before returning them to the patients house.
This has saved our ‘vulnerable’ patients from leaving their house, and restored their ability to eat and drink! Our team continue to personally call our members to ‘check-in’ with them to see if they are well and if need any help during this time. We will also be extending our working hours once we are fully operational, to help accommodate any missed appointments.
If for whatever reason this is not possible or inappropriate, we will add the “value” of your missed appointment(s) to your account, which can be used as credit against any treatment you may require, whitening or oral hygiene products.
As always your continued support, commitment, kind words over the phone, email replies, cards and social media posts are truly humbling and gives us immense determination to help in any way we can.
Please stay safe and alert, and together we will get through this!
Best Wishes
Puneet and Sheetal Jain & The Team at Sutton Dental & Implant Clinic
