To our friends and family at Sutton Dental & Implant Clinic
As the world begins to ‘open’ up again we hope you, your families and loved ones remain safe and well. I’m sure many of you would have seen the recent headlines this week surrounding the sad state of affairs of NHS Dentistry. Covid-19 and the closure of Dental Practices in the first lockdown has created a huge backlog for NHS Dental Practices and further worsened access to these services.
The majority of these Practices are still only running at half capacity as they are unable (or unwilling) to make the investments necessary to increase patient access. It has now been widely reported people have been asked to wait up to 3 years for appointments, and I feel this will only get worse.
Having worked in the NHS myself for many years, this is sad news. NHS Dentistry was once a fine service allowing us to offer a comprehensive range of services to our patients. Over the last 15 years, increased restrictions on the availably of services we could offer along with materials we could use, forced me to leave the NHS, as I felt I could no longer provide the level and range of care I wanted to for my patients.
Covid-19 has created a situation that I feel NHS Dentistry will not be able to recover from without further and very severe restrictions on services and will become more of an “emergency only”service.
In contrast to this, I am pleased to report that with our proactiveness, increased investments and dedication we have not only caught up with the ‘backlog’ but have resumed all of services for months now and able to offer appointments within 1-3 weeks.
As you know the reason we exist improve the health and wellbeing of as many patients as we can. With this as our cause and reason for existence, it naturally focuses us on what we can do to help our patients on a daily basis.
We also feel, that with the current state of affairs, we need to help others who maybe struggling to see their NHS dentist. Therefore, we have been working hard to increase the ‘capacity’ within the Practice with Dr Marwa Maarouf increasing a day with us, and also taking on an additional therapist for 2 days a week. This will allow us to take on new patients again.
However we will not be marketing this as we not looking for new patients that are completely ‘unknown’ to us. Instead we would like new patients that are known to YOU! So if you have any family members, friends, colleagues or acquaintances that are struggling to get an appointment with their current dentist, we will be happy to help them by seeing them here.
Our existing ‘word of mouth’ reward scheme will continue, as we highly value all referrals and recommendations into the Practice, and with this we can continue to grow and develop our services, whilst driving our cause forwards of improving the health and wellbeing of as many patients as we can.
Remember our standard membership is £18 a month and includes:
- 2 x comprehensive 19 point dental health checks a year (including screening for oral cancer and standard x-rays as needed)
- 2 x 30 minute hygiene appointments a year using the AirFlow Cleaning system
- 20% discount off our general dental treatments (including tooth whitening)
- Complimentary Out of hours service running from 9am to 9pm – 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- Travel assistance allowing you to recover any emergency dental work carried out while you are abroad.
Private dentistry is often more affordable than people realise and £18 a month is often less than what most people spend on broadband or their phone contracts.
Health and Wellbeing has never been more important or prevalent, and the correlation between your dental health and general health and wellbeing has never been stronger. We now understand, better than ever, the impact poor dental health can have on your overall health, and this was highlighted further during the first national lockdown.
Now that our services are fully operational and we are successfully coming out of this current lockdown, along with the majority of us having had at least one Covid-19 vaccine, there has never been a better time to get your dental health and those around you back on track.
Please see link below if you want to read more about the struggles of NHS Dentistry.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57229847
As you did previously, if you need an appointment, we would like to welcome you to please call us and we will book you in! Please bear in mind though that we are still operating on an appointment only basis. This is to ensure we can ‘screen’ all patients before they come to the Practice for the safety of our other patients and team members.
Thank you again for your continued understanding, support, loyalty and patience during this time. It has been truly humbling to us and has helped us get through this difficult time.
We sincerely hope you and your families remain safe and well during this on-going lockdown and it continues to remain a pleasure to see you in the Practice, providing face-to-face care and helping in anyway we can.
We look forward to seeing you again soon for face-to-face care. In the meantime please stay safe and enjoy the Bank Holiday Weekend!
Best Wishes
Puneet & Sheetal Jain, and the Team at Sutton Dental & Implant Clinic