COVID 19 Information

The following documents have been made available:

De-escalation Letter from CDO – 19 June 2020 here

Letter from CDO re SOP – 10 June 2020 – here
SOP documentation – 10 June 2020 – here

Past information for reference:

CDO letter, de-escalation and recovery plans – Published 22/05/2020

– Letter from CDO letter – here
– Restoration of Dental Services – here
– De-escalation Pandemic Plan – here
– De-escalation SOP – here

Red Alert Phase Escalation – Published 3/3/2020
Download here

Red Alert from Welsh Government and CDO
Download here

Financial Offer and Business Continuity
Download here

Here are some further resources that you might find helpful. Please check back on this page for further updates.

Very helpful advice for patients from the BDA here

The following document has been released by Public Health Wales (and others) to support infection prevention measures in primary care.

Guidance for infection prevention and control in healthcare settings. Download here.

Referrals

You may continue to make referrals for patients through the system.  Referrals for suspected cancer will be dealt with as normal but most other referrals will be added to a waitlist until such time that they can be seen.

We will add information here about referrals to Urgent care centres when it is available.

Government

The Welsh government has moved to a red alert. This means:

• Further restrictions on GDS routine care with the new measures for patient telephone-triage and remote prescribing
• Practices may remain open for very limited and carefully risk-assessed patient consultation, but all dental care that can be delayed must be put on hold
• Patients needing urgent care involving AGPs must be referred to properly equipped local Urgent Dental Care Centers. Health Boards are working with practices to co-ordinate referrals. We will update this page when this is available.

The CDO has written with further details about business continuity. This lays out provision for payments of ACV for April May and June with certain expectations attached.

Dentists in Wales may also review the guidance previously sent out to Welsh GDPs and CDS dentists. This provides a level of clarification on clinical and financial issues. A bi-lingual public information poster has also been provided for Welsh practices.

Accessing COVID Urgent Care Centres

You will see a new referral form on your system called “COVID Urgent Care Form”.  You can use this to refer patients that meet your Health Boards criteria for urgent treatment. Please check your local guidance before making a referral. Health Boards that are live are on the system now and we expect all to be live by Monday 6th April 2020.

Report COVID-19 Business Continuity Here

Following the confirmation of the business continuity offer for NHS dental practices the following form should be completed every 7 days to report on activity within your practices. Please report the activity for 7 days only – not a rolling or cumulative figure.

The data processing agreement that signed during the referrals sign up process covers the submission of these data.

If you have any questions or concerns over referrals at this time our team is available to help.  Please contact us via email or the usual telephone number.