14th April Covid-19 Update

14 April 2020

HPS Guidance Urgent Dental Care; CDO Volunteer Request; BDA Guidance

Please find below a summary of today’s Covid-19 news relevant to GDPs in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Today’s GG&C Chief of Dentistry update is available here.

  1. HPS GUIDANCE URGENT DENTAL CARE
    • Health Protection Scotland have produced detailed guidance on ‘Infection Prevention and Control in Urgent Dental Care Settings during the period of COVID-19’
    • Transmission Based Precautions (TBPs) are an additional layer of protection required when caring for a patient with a known or suspected infectious agent such as Covid-19, in specific circumstances. These are detailed in the document.
    • The advice clarifies what procedures are being considered AGPs and the rationale behind these classifications, detailing the appropriate PPE that should be worn.
    • “Procedures including examination, taking radiographs, using hand instruments, extractions and suction are not classed as AGPs and so standard infection control procedures and droplet precautions should be used for these.”
    • “High speed dental drills are accepted as AGPs… Using high speed drills to open an access cavity or surgical high-speed drills to undertake surgical extraction of a tooth/ root will necessitate use of enhanced PPE”
    • “The use of 3-in-1 syringes, ultrasonic scalers or other pieces of dental equipment powered by air compressor should be avoided at this time and should not be a reason to wear an FFP3 mask. However, if they are used as an adjunct to treatment with high speed drills, staff will already have donned PPE for AGPs.”
  2. CDO VOLUNTEER REQUEST
    • The CDO has written to all dentists and their teams asking for volunteers
    • You can now volunteer using the national portal (which appears to also  be used for recruiting students and retirees).
    • The likely roles that you might undertake are detailed in the last page of the letter.
  3. BDA STAYING SAFE POSTER

GG&C Chief of Dentistry Update 14th April
HPS Guidance
CDO Volunteer Request
BDA ‘Staying Safe Poster’