No, the aliens have not landed. It’s just our dedicated team taking every precaution to keep you safe during COVID-19, and if it includes some rather unconventional headgear then so be it.

A lot has been written about the “new normal” as well as the precautions that businesses should be putting in place to ensure the safety of their staff and the public. Some have bemoaned the amount of work that is entailed in adhering to the required health standards, while others are going to the other extreme.

Here at Shine Dental Clinic, we’ve taken, what we feel are sensible precautions as we move into the next phase of 2020, and we’d like to share them with you. 

What You Can Expect from Shine Dental

Your appointment

We have chosen to stagger our appointments to have the minimum amount of people in the clinic at any given time. This may mean that we can only see a limited number of people in a day, but we feel that fewer people in the waiting room means less opportunity for infection.

Only people who have an appointment will be allowed into the clinic, so anyone who may be with you will be asked to wait in the car. Obviously, this won’t apply to children who need to be accompanied by a parent. 

Anyone who is ill cannot be allowed into the Clinic, but prior to arriving at the Clinic, everyone will have an assessment completed telephonically by one of the team to ensure you are well. When you arrive

Our reception area has been equipped with safety screens. Once you enter, you’ll be asked to sanitise your hands and equip yourself with a mask from the station provided. Your personal belongings can then be left in a box outside the door of your treatment room. 

In the dentist’s chair

Our team will be wearing suitable protective clothing, including gloves, masks, and face shields – all of which goes a long way towards remaining compliant and keeping you, our valued patients, safe. 

Once you have been seated, you can remove your mask and place it in the plastic bag provided as you’ll need it again once your appointment is done. 

We can’t be too careful in our discipline; there’s no getting away from the ‘risky’ mouth area in the dental field! Therefore, every precaution is taken during your treatment to ensure that we limit the spread of droplets which could be contaminated. 

After your appointment

Once your treatment is complete, you will be asked to wash your hands and dry them thoroughly with the paper towels provided, disposing of them in the touch-free bins. After this, you’re encouraged to pop your mask back on, collect your belongings and make your way back to reception.

We’ll follow up via email or telephone to talk about your next appointment or answer any questions that you may have, so there’s no need to linger in the reception area. 

Just before you exit, you’ll be asked to remove your mask, place it in the plastic packet and dispose of it in the touch-free bin. One more quick squirt of hand sanitiser and you’re all done.

In between appointments our team run through a quick and efficient process of sanitising surfaces such as door handles, to make extra sure that there is no possibility of contributing to the spread of COVID-19.

Let’s Work Together

We all want to do our bit in stopping the spread of the coronavirus… but we also want to get back to our lives. While the virus is active in our country or our towns, we need to do whatever we can to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus or giving it to others. 

We hope that you are satisfied that we are doing what we can in this battle against an invisible enemy, and we very much look forward to seeing you again here at the Shine Dental Clinic.