As part of the NHS E/I response to the COVID-19 crisis and the maintenance of essential medical services, The Dental Team are writing to you for information on your practice workforce as they plan the setting up of Urgent Dental Care Hubs in the South East of England. A link to the survey is below.
As you will be aware from the CDO correspondence last week all practices should only be providing a telephone/video advice, analgesia and anti-microbial’s, where appropriate (AAA). NHS E/I are establishing UDC hubs in strategic locations across the South East.
NHS E/I are expecting that these are staffed by local NHS dental teams on a rota system. They have been advised that the hubs will be initially be open Monday to Friday during normal daytime working hours increasing to a 7 day service once established. As the crisis develops it is likely that the number of dental staff that are isolating may increase. The Dental Team therefore need to understand the status of our regional dental workforce in order to support the implementation and operation of these hubs and have the ability to call on staff to ensure that urgent dental services can be maintained.
The Dental Team know that there are likely to be lots of questions about rota frequency, location of clinics etc and they hope to be in a position to share this with you as soon as we can. One of the first requirements is to establish a dental workforce database whilst the other workstreams, eg location of sites, are being established concurrently. They ask that you do not email your questions at the current time and we promise that we will share the information as soon as we can.
As a contract holder would you please discuss this survey with your staff and forward the link onto them for completion so that you and all your employees can make the necessary return.
The Dental Team would ask that the survey is returned by close of business Friday 10 April 2020. However, it is appreciated that there will be a number of late returns as not all staff will be working during this period.
All submitted returns will be automatically sent to the data controller for correlation.
Here’s the link to the form “Support to COVID-19 UDCs – Dental Workforce Survey – NHS England / Improvement South East”:
