Proposal for a Strategy and Staged Return to Dentistry for UK General Dental Practice

Since the shutdown of UK dentistry on the 25 March 2020, at the time of writing, regional health teams have worked tirelessly to set up 219 Urgent Dental Centres (UDCs) to treat those in the population facing the very worst dental emergencies. They should be greatly commended for this effort.

Unfortunately, due to the precautions currently needed to provide protection for patients and clinicians during Aerosol Generating Procedures (AGPs), under the current protocols, these Urgent Dental Centres can collectively only treat 3,500–4,400 patients a day.

Like many practices, we are triaging our patients by telephone. The number of calls we are receiving from patients in pain or discomfort is increasing every week, due to not intercepting potential emergencies through routine dental care. On average, we are now speaking to six new patients a day who are in discomfort and we would class as, under normal circumstances, needing to be seen. Anecdotal evidence from other Practice owners we know points to a similar growing treatment crisis.