Gentle Dental Blog

Welcome to our new blog

Wed, 08 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A warm welcome to the Gentle Dental blog.

We will use this space to provide expert advice and tips on achieving your perfect smile and explain how we are uniquely able to cater for nervous and anxious clients in our relaxed and friendly private dentist in the heart of Salisbury.

In the meantime, please take a look at the various treatments we can provide and if you have any questions please feel free to contact us and we will do our best to help.

Charcoal toothpaste can damage your teeth

Mon, 17 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Why we're fanatical about flossing at Gentle Dental

Fri, 10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know flossing (cleaning between your teeth) has been scientifically proven to reduce your risk with regard to dementia, stroke and heart disease??

As a hygienist I’m a bit fanatical about Flossing (cleaning between my teeth) Yes, it’s a bit of a drag but is now an ingrained habit. Only a third of the population floss/clean between their teeth regularly and another third say they never clean between teeth.

Several years ago, research showed that ‘flossing/cleaning between’ not only reduces the risk of gum disease but might also cut the risk of having a heart attack while more recent studies suggest that it could also reduce your risk of developing dementia.

So why is oral health linked to these diseases? The answer is inflammation. The bacteria that causes gum disease can travel through the blood into other organs, and over time cause damage. One of the most common sites for inflammation in the body is in the mouth (gingivitis) and a proven way to reduce this is to brush and clean between your teeth regularly and to a good standard.

So, what is the link between Alzheimer’s and bacteria from the mouth?

We may not know the exact mechanism but we are all familiar with the body’s inflammatory response. When you cut yourself, your immune system sends white blood cells to the area to attack and destroy harmful bacteria etc. This is what causes the redness, swelling, and discomfort we feel around the injury. This is called acute inflammation.

Acute inflammation is essential as it creates an environment that kills off invading bacteria, viruses and the like. Once this is achieved the inflammation disappears. However, in some cases the inflammation isn’t switched off and becomes a chronic/long term condition.

One of the things known to cause chronic inflammation is having a persistent source of infection. If we are not clearing in between our teeth on a regular basis there is a ready and persistent supply of bacteria which gives rise to chronic inflammation – which research has shown has a role in diseases ranging from heart disease and cancer to dementia and depression.

How does this relate to Cleaning your teeth?

Your mouth is full of billions of bacteria, most of which are harmless. These bacteria join together and form a plaque (Biofilm). The bacteria release toxins causing a response from your immune system i.e. inflammation known as Gingivitis.

The risk is that some bacteria will enter the blood stream, travel round your body and may cause further damage.

We’ve known for some time that there is a link between infection of your gums and damage to arteries and to your heart. And now there is research providing evidence the link with the brain that inflammation in the mouth can increase your risk of Alzheimer’s. The research showed that the brains of people who had died with Alzheimer’s were more likely to be infected with bacteria, Porphyromonas gingivalis, which are associated with severe gum disease. Toxins produced by the bacteria called gingipains, were also detected in the brains

The research showed, at least in mice, these bacteria and the related toxins can destroy brain tissue. In order to protect itself the brain produces amyloid plaques, a common feature of Alzheimer’s.

So, for your long-term health, get the floss and interdental brushes out and get cleaning… regularly!

Gentle Dental January Newsletter

Fri, 10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year!

As we enter a new decade it gives us time to reflect it has been a busy year for us and we would like to thank you all for the support over the past year and for the 16 years we have been open.

It is a huge compliment for us when you feel confident to refer your friends, family and work colleagues and this you have done in abundance over the past 12 months. The biggest source of new clients who registered with us came on recommendations from you. Thank you for the faith you place in us.

Did you know …..Flossing (cleaning between your teeth) has been scientifically proven to reduce your risk with regard to dementia, stroke and heart disease??

Click here to read our blog.

Team updates

Guess who is back!

Victoria returned from maternity leave on Jan 6th. Little Sophie is now 10 months old and getting cuter by the day. She loves having a look inside our mouths…. a dentist in the making, watch out Rob!

We have also been joined by Jodie, a qualified dental nurse. Jodie first came to us at age 16 for work experience. We sadly didn’t have a position available when she was looking for a training place but she has eventually found her way back to us.

Some of you will be very happy to hear that Patricia will be coming back in February. We know many of you will be very happy to see her back with us on reception.

Sadly our ‘cheeky chappie’ Alfred left us at the end of December. He is starting a barbering course in the new year and hoping to travel the world for a while.

Shilpa, Robs nurse, is now a fully-fledged dental nurse having passed her exams in the summer. However Shilpa will be moving to Kent with her husband and so she is sadly leaving us this January.

Lucy will also be leaving us at the End of January, she is moving back home to Blackpool with her Family.

Save the Date -Saturday Jan 18th at the Guildhall in Salisbury.

Are you looking to improve certain aspects in your life but don’t know where to start?

We are part of a group of health and wellbeing professionals, all of whom are local businesses. In conversation we realised that lots of people want to improve things in their life but don’t really know where to start. So, to make it easy for you we will all be in one spot for the day. You can have all of your questions answered and find out the best way forward for you to achieve the health and wellbeing you want. There will be 20+ exhibitors including Not just Backs, Coach me slim, Memory Optician, Maria Olsen Homeopathy to name just a few.

Pop in to say hello. It is free entry and we are always happy to see familiar faces to chat to. Rob will be one of the speakers on at 12.30 to give information on how flossing can protect against dementia, strokes and heart disease.

Find out all of the information here

Watch this space

We recently reviewed our business plan, drawn up in 2017. Now that was a laugh! (We have revisited it numerous times but now we are just going to scrap it and start again!). It stated we were going to get another dentist, get them busy 2 days per week and then put in a downstairs treatment room.

Despite our best efforts taking on another dentist just has not worked out so it is currently still just Rob and Niamh on the clinical end of things. We will keep working on this but in the meantime for those of you desperately hanging in there and struggling with the stairs, we are having a stair lift fitted and hopefully in place by the end of January.

Help us before 26th February to feature on Salisbury’s official Monopoly board!!!

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We need your help before 26th February!!! Vote for Gentle Dental to be featured on Salisbury’s own version of MONOPOLY!

Salisbury has won the UK competition and will be getting its very own official version of MONOPOLY

The public are invited to vote for Salisbury landmarks to feature in the game over a two-week voting period.

Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge and Salisbury Racecourse are the obvious spots for the board, but what iconic shops, cafes, pubs and other businesses should feature on the Salisbury MONOPOLY board?

We would love your vote to feature in the game. You don’t have to be from Salisbury to vote. We would appreciate it if you could ask your friends and family to vote for us too!!

You can vote by:

Emailing [email protected]">[email protected]
Visiting the official Salisbury MONOPOLY Facebook page
Posting to "Salisbury MONOPOLY, Winning Moves UK, 7 Praed Street, London W2 1NJ"

Voting closes at 23.59pm on Wednesday 26th February 2020.

See more information about Monopoly Salisbury edition by clicking here

Coronavirus and safe dental appointments in Salisbury

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With everything that is going on with Covid 19 (Coronavirus) it is easy to miss the beauty of the season and the anticipation of long hot days (fingers crossed) but it is not long until the clocks change and that ‘summer feeling’ will hit us all. It is so heartening to see the daffodils and catkins when out an about and the stretch in the evenings always lifts my spirits.

With regard to the Coronavirus we wanted to reassure you and allay any concerns you may have about appointments. As a dental practice we are highly regulated regarding our cross-infection control procedures and we wanted to let you know that we haven’t had to alter anything we do with regard to cleanliness and hygiene in the light of the current pandemic.

All of our instruments are either disposable or sterilisable. The checks and balances we have to carry out on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis ensure all of our procedures are to a consistently high standard, all of our equipment functions as it should when cleaning and sterilising instruments and the surfaces in the treatment rooms are wiped down between every client. Continuous compulsory annual training and observation means all of the staff are carrying out all of the procedures to the proper standard every time.

The Coronavirus as you know is passed on by contact and as we wear gloves for treatments this hugely reduces the risk of the virus being passed to you by a staff member.

The current advice is that the spread of the viral load is not high until you have the symptoms of the illness (cough, high temperature). All of the staff are aware that as soon as they experience any of these symptoms that they are to remain off work and self-isolate as per the government guidelines.

We do fully understand some of you may have concerns and hope that we have allayed your fears. Remember the best way to fight illness is to stay healthy. So, eat healthily, exercise to keep your body healthy, keep your mouth healthy with your routine appointments and most importantly keep your mind healthy.

It is a concerning time for all of us but we need to keep our heads. We would urge you to filter what you hear in the media and follow the advice given by the professionals. Here is the link to the NHS and gov.uk website which is updated daily so you will always have the most up to date advice and information …without the media hype.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

We look forward to seeing you all and Happy Spring

Important update from Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I know it is unusual to hear from us two weeks in a row but we felt it would be good to update you on information about our dental practice in Salisbury and your dental care.

Finally, today we received advice from the British Dental Association (BDA) advising that dentists and their staff are considered to be key workers. Given this information we will be continuing to remain open as usual and are happy to see you for your appointments, if you feel happy to attend. Your health is important to us and we want you to be safe. We just want to reassure you that we will respect your decision should you wish to move your booked appointment. So many of you have already contacted us for reassurance and the team are happy to answer any queries or concerns you may have. Feel free to give us a call, no matter what your query

As we said in our newsletter last week dental practices are highly regulated regarding our cross-infection control procedures and we wanted to reiterate that we haven’t had to alter anything we do in the treatment rooms with regard to cleanliness and hygiene in the light of the current pandemic. See our newsletter from last week for more information on this by clicking here

We have put some additional measures in place in the rest of the clinic.

Provided hand sanitiser in our reception and lounge areas for you to use.
We have a bathroom in our lounge so you can wash your hands when you arrive if you wish.
We are taking extra measures to wipe the reception and lounge surfaces in between clients as well as the door handle on the entrance door after each client.
Propped open doors so you do not have to touch door handles.
We wipe tablets and card machines with disinfectant wipes after each use
Please do not be offended if we ask you to hang your own coat. We want to minimise the risk of any transference to another client.

Please click here for the latest official and up to date advice about Coronavirus, symptoms and how to avoid catching and spreading it.

We would kindly ask that if you have any of the following symptoms that you reschedule your appointment by calling us on 01722 413311, even if it is at short notice. Email or text is also fine.

a “new, continuous” cough

AND/OR

a high temperature

If you have either of the above symptoms the advice is to self-isolate for seven days if you live alone or 14 days if you live with someone else.

Our team are also aware of this advice and will follow this should they get symptoms.

If you do have either of these symptoms and you have a dental emergency please call 111 for advice rather than attending the clinic as the advice is that we should not see you in the clinic.

Please be assured that in the event of an enforced closure we will still provide an emergency service for our existing clients; during normal opening hours; and without any additional fee for opening the clinic. Outside of normal opening hours, members do of course already have cover which takes care of this fee. For those of you who are not on the practice membership the normal clinic opening fees will apply.

If Rob has to self-isolate we have made arrangements with a trusted local private practice for emergency cover. For those of you on the practice membership you will be able to claim back some the emergency fee in the normal way through the membership providers.

We are continuing to monitor new advice. Please be assured that should there be any changes we will contact you. We will be keeping our website up to date with these blogs with any new information and we will communicate this to you via a text so you can be updated. Please feel free to share the link with anyone you feel may find it relevant.

So to other matters….

We have been notified that the volunteer service at the hospital are seeking volunteers. You do not need to be medically trained. You would be helping with a variety of tasks that would free up medically trained staff. If you have free time and feel that you would like to volunteer please follow the link here to find out more

As I am sure you are all too aware at the moment there is an issue of panic buying and stockpiling. So many of the supermarkets are providing time slots specifically for the elderly/vulnerable to come and do their food shop so that they reduce their contact with others. However, the shelves as you are all too aware are bare as the distributors are struggling to keep up with the demand. With a sense of community and caring for others in mind, lets all continue to spread the word that there is no shortage of food and only buy the amount we normally would so that those who are most vulnerable both from a health and financial point of view have access to essentials.

On a more positive front we are aware that there are many groups in the community who are offering their services to help out those who are self-isolating or vulnerable. If you know of any groups and would like us to share these details forward the details for us to share on our website.

Finally, one of our clients has notified us that the local food banks are struggling to keep up with the demand due to recent job losses. It means that there is an increase in need for the service however they have fewer supplies as the supermarket shelves are empty. Perhaps we could all look in our cupboards and consider if we really need everything in there. Could we donate it to a food bank to help support the vulnerable in our society?

Please click here for the link to the Trussell trust for more information

Stay well, stay safe and keep in touch with us for any queries

Rob, Niamh & the Gentle Dental team

Helping during COVID-19

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you all for the good wishes you have sent in response to the temporary closure of the practice. The entire team really appreciate them.

It is a strange time, surreal even. In the future the younger generations will tell their children and grandchildren about the time the world closed down. Hopefully we can make sure the stories and memories that get passed on are positive. So, make memories with your families, even from a distance with video messaging, a phone call or letters that you can laugh about together when this is all over.

Help where you can. The biggest thing we can all do right now is stay home to keep each other safe. There are some things we can do to help no matter how small.

A team of UK researchers have designed an app for your phone to track Coronavirus and to better understand the symptoms along with how the virus is spreading. This amazing research app is so important as it is real live data, the speed at which this data can be received will hopefully help with controlling the spread. It is really simple. All you have to do is download it and complete it daily. The first time you log in it takes a few minutes or so to input your data. After that it takes 1 minute to self-report daily. Anybody can take part, even if you are well. If you can please help click here and follow the instructions.

I am sure many of you have already but if you haven't put a note through your neighbours’ door to see if you can collect shopping or medication so we can help protect the vulnerable.

If you are able, perhaps look and see if you can volunteer. Please click here for the volunteer service for the NHS during the outbreak.

We will email to publicise anything else we feel is important to let everyone know so keep an eye for updates on this page.

Keep well, live and love.

Toothache - what to do guide

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hello again folks.

We hope you are all well, safe and are surviving your “family bonding” time! For our part we thought we were fairly fit with all of the running up and down stairs we do at work but 10 days of walking, cycling, gardening and keep fit with Joe Wicks/Davina McCall (other exercise platforms are also available!!) oh my! Aching muscles and please do not expect us to bend over to pick anything up from the floor.

Our two young adults are here with us so really nice time from that point of view, and they are both still alive…..just! They have even taken to cooking an occasional meal for us.

[guide to pain]

Some of you have been in touch, hesitantly, for advice and please keep contacting us with any query. We are more than happy to chat you through any dental concern. But we thought it might be useful for you to have something you can refer to when you have a concern. We were busy putting something together when our art student daughter intervened and insisted it had to look good!! And needed an expert touch. Please see below for the information. We hope you like the result and find it useful if you have a concern or query. Remember we are more than happy for you to contact us as well.

We have had a request to put out some advice on brushing and flossing as well as generally how to look after your oral heath during this time and we are working on this. The easiest platform in which to get this out to you in on Instagram or Facebook. We do have a profile on both so if you feel you might like a snapshot of these things then follow us. We will try to get it on the website blog also but it may be above our technical skills.

Finally, despite the excess of exercise, we are both keeping healthy and mobile. Should any of you need help with shopping or picking up medicines etc please give us a call. Have car and can travel as it were.

Stay Home, Stay Safe and see you all on the other side

Tips for kids with autism by Gentle Dental in Salisbury

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Oral health is a very important component of healthy daily living for all of us. For some children with autism, oral health habits like tooth brushing can be challenging. Here’s some tips that may help.

To get started, you and your child should pick out the right toothbrush. There are many colours, styles, and types available. It is important that the brush is the right size for your child’s mouth and that it has soft bristles.

For some children with autism, the sensation of brushing teeth can be difficult and it may need to be introduced in stages. You may want to start by using the toothbrush to touch your child’s lips or just inside the mouth. Practice how to “open wide,” so that this direction is understood when you start brushing. Showing your child how you brush your own teeth can also be helpful.

As a parent of an autistic child you will be very aware of the importance of routine. Here are some guides to help with tooth brushing routine and with practicing for a visit to the dentist. We hope they are useful.

Toothbrushing Routine

Preparing for a Dental Visit

Please click here for more information

Celebration......and Breathe!

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Belated Easter wishes to you all. We hope you enjoyed the beautiful weather; in your garden, balcony or whatever inch of space you managed to carve out for yourself. The wishes are late as working on the computer took second place as we took on a ‘gardening project' and thus the Celebration. We recently added a small conservatory/porch on our house and realised we now had the perfect place for a shaded seating area. So with bits scavenged from elsewhere in the garden and three days of hard graft, we ate dinner in the newly created space. As always it was a great sense of achievement.

We try to provide useful information in these messages and this time it is all about lungs and breathing, all information that has come our way from medical and fitness professionals.

As we are all aware the lungs are badly affected by this virus so understanding your lungs, how they work and how to breathe may be of use, should any of us become ill. Breathing exercises are also regularly used as a relaxation technique so should it all become too stressful at any stage of isolation it may be a useful exercise to have to hand.

There are two videos. One, available now on our Instagram and Facebook, is by Rhian from Not Just Backs Osteopaths and explains the mechanics of breathing and advice on how to breathe. The second, which will be on our social media from Monday, is by a Pilates Institute qualified instructor Sara of Fitness Design. This demonstrates the actual breathing exercises which will both help you to relax and help to keep your lungs healthy. If you do not have access to social media please reply to this and we will try to email the videos to you.

The final advice is from a Respiratory Physiotherapist at QE in Birmingham and really important to know should anyone have symptoms of the virus. It should reduce the need for oxygen therapy, provide an improvement in drainage and help minimise collapse of the small airways. It may also reduce the need for hospitalisation.

It is really important that you spend as little time as possible lying on your back. Swap between side lying and front lying in each case with pillows under your pelvis so your head is approximately 30 degrees below the pelvis - two pillows should achieve this. Take 5-6 deep breaths and hold for a few seconds on the last breath.

As always it is important you call 111 and seek medical advice should you have any symptoms. These breathing exercises are purely additional knowledge which may help alleviate symptoms and help with comfort but are not a replacement for proper medical advice and intervention should it be necessary.

On a lighter note, all of the Gentle Dental team are keeping well. We have all signed up to online training and will have our first Zoom call next week to discuss the training and perhaps even do some online training as a group. This way when we do get to reopen, we will be right up to date and ready to go!

Keep well and safe.

Warmest wishes

Rob, Niamh & the fabulous Gentle Dental team.

Emergency dentist during Covid 19

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What to do if you have dental pain.

During the Corona outbreak in order to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, dentists are not allowed to do any treatment that might generate an aerosol spray. We can speak with patients and give advice or, if appropriate, antibiotics.

But what do you do if this is not enough to stop the pain?

Emergency Dental Hubs are now open around the country. However, you cannot just walk in, you have to have spoken with a dentist and be referred. Your dentist will discuss your symptoms and assess if painkillers or antibiotics are the best option for you. If he/she feels this will not work they will email a referral to the hub who will contact you an again discuss the situation and assess if they absolutely need to do treatment or if painkillers/antibiotics will suffice. If not, then an appointment time will be allocated to you.

Please be aware this process is as outlined by the government and the regulators within dentistry. It isn’t the creation of any individual dentist and we have to work within the guideline.

So, if you have pain AND are registered with a dentist, call your practice. They should be monitoring phone calls or providing information on how to contact them. Don’t call 111 if you are registered with a dentist as you will just be told to contact your practice.

If you are NOT registered with a dentist, call 111 and they will try to find a dentist that you can speak with for assessment; and referral if appropriate.

If you cannot contact your own dentist or are not registered with a dentist, please feel free to call us 01722 413311 and Rob will give any assistance he can.

And what has food got to do with dentistry?

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hello again.

So, what has food got to do with dentistry? Not a lot really other than passing the time. Thankfully until now the weather has been fabulous so we’ve been doing lots of gardening, walking and cycling so with the advent of rain…….cooking.

Rob treated us all to a slap-up feast with scallops, squid and son-in-law eggs (boiled eggs dipped in tamarind and deep fired). Very yummy

Ruaidhri (on his day off) and me had a bake-off moment when I ventured into bread making following my mum’s Irish soda bread recipe and he made a Paul Hollywood Focaccia. And guess who did the judging? (Well he does have similar coloured hair and beard)

Saoirse is technically still at Uni so it is lectures and work most days for her. At least we are keeping her well-fed.

When we are not cooking/baking we are spending a lot of time on webinars and official websites making ourselves aware of the guidance on how for when we reopen and keeping in touch with the team on Zoom and Whatsapp. There is no doubt the way we work and your visit with the clinic will be very different and we want to make sure we hit the ground running when we are allowed back to work. Of course, all of this changes daily but as soon as we have a definitive picture for the way forward, we will share it with you.

Finally, we now have the promised video on breathing techniques for you if you want to have a watch. We are posting on Facebook and Instagram several times each week so if you do use either, follow us to keep up to date on a more regular basis.

We look forward to seeing you all in the (hopefully) near future.

Keep well and safe

Keeping up with dentistry in and out of the garden

Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Who would have thought back in March that we would still be communicating with you in a blog in mid-May rather than seeing you all at the dental practice!

However, we have been keeping busy and Rob has been keeping his dentistry skills up with root extractions! This was certainly a difficult one and did require a bit of surgery – tree surgery that is.

As many of you may remember we inherited a very overgrown, ‘full of sheds full of stuff’ garden when we moved into our current house. Every year we tackle another patch to tame and sort out. This year is the front garden so with time on our hands we are making progress. The patch in this picture represent about 10% of the lawn we will need to dig and turf. Got a long way to go!

It has been slightly hampered by the climbing wall Ruaidhri built but recent announcements mean he may not need it for much longer as he may be able to go climbing at the coast.

On that note it would appear that dentistry, although not listed anywhere in the published guidance falls into the ‘step 3’ category when it comes to reopening - July 4th. Obviously, this comes with all the provisos outlined by the PM but let’s hope it all works and we can get back to some semblance of normality.

As well as gardening we have been spending a lot of time on webinars and reading research papers as well as seeking expert advice on how to move forward after this. We hope to have formulated a more definitive plan soon and will communicate this to you over the next few weeks. There is no doubt that every walk of life, including your dental appointment, will be a little bit different moving forward.

Keep safe, stay alert and keep an eye out for our emails.

Celebration - Gentle Dental is reopening

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So, a lot of cheering from our two young adults at home after the announcement that you can now meet with more than just one friend and their celebration included the words “it will be so nice to see people other than just our parents” !!!!!

As you will all no doubt be aware the government has also announced that dentists can now re-open on June 8th and this has been backed up by the Chief Dental Officer (CDO) for England.

We have got to say this is completely out of the blue as all indications, based on the government guidelines, that close contact professionals such as hairdressers would not reopen until July 4th and therefore we were working towards this date.

While we are keen to start providing care as soon as possible we would ask for your continued patience while we get up and running. As you can imagine opening involves a lot of planning which we have been doing for the last several months, (rewriting policies, new risk assessments and training of staff for the new normal) some of which we have communicated to you via email in the last few weeks.

The biggest hurdle we have to overcome currently is the availability of PPE. We have spent many hours trawling through lists of suppliers and regularly calling to see what is in stock and have managed over the weeks to gather a small supply. However, some of the supplies, such as face masks/respirators, will not be available to us for several weeks so, sadly, we will be unable to open our doors on June 8th and until we have the delivery date for PPE we cannot give you a precise date.

We have created a policy document which outlines everything to do with the reopening. In this you will see that we mention ‘fallow time’- time at the end of each appointment that we are now required to allow for cleaning and disinfection of the treatment room above and beyond what we used to need to do. This means that any appointments currently booked in our diary will have to be reappointed to allow for this process. The team will be in touch as soon as we know return dates to start the process of rebooking the entire diary. Please click here to read the policy.

We do have a list of clients who have contacted us over the lockdown with pain and these will be our first priority. We will then arrange appointments for;

Clients with treatment that was not completed before lockdown.
Clients who were due for Hygienist and Dental Health Review visits during lockdown.
Clients due for Invisalign reviews.

Finally, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your loyalty over this period of closure. As a small business, and one not in the category of retail, hospitality or leisure, we were not eligible for much of the government assistance and were still liable to pay business rates etc. The monthly membership fees alongside our cash reserves have given us breathing space and allowed the situation to be not too stressful from a cash flow point of view.

Please monitor the blog page on our website, our Instagram and Facebook pages for further updates and await our phone call to re-arrange your appointments as soon as we possibly can.

Keep well, safe and enjoy your opportunity to see family and friends after this long period of time

Gentle Dental in Salisbury is opening soon!!

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hurrah we finally have a (tentative) opening date for Gentle Dental... Monday July 6th. We, Rob and Niamh, have been at work most days this week seeing clients who had contacted us with difficulties and planning their next steps. The team joined us for a time on Wednesday and we had a socially distanced lunch in the lounge, which thankfully is big enough to accommodate that. It was so lovely to see everyone in the flesh rather than on zoom.

Thank you to all of you who replied to our email to you about postponing your hygienist appointment in July/August. We really appreciate your help in clearing the backlog. Many of you were apologetic if for some reason you could not postpone and we want to reassure you that this is no problem and we are happy to accommodate that.

We are awaiting the final PPE delivery on Monday and once we definitely have this in our sticky fingers we will be in touch to start booking. If you have an appointment pre booked in July/August and want to keep it please be aware we may need to alter the time. We will be posting a blog again next week with an update on opening etc.

Clients who have been in to the practice this week have commented on how nice our hand sanitiser is. The product is from a UK company and CE marked. It does not contain alcohol so it is kind to skin. All the research has been done to back up its efficacy. The initial recommendation for hand gel to contain 60% alcohol was because the WHO (World Health Organisation) knew that worked on Covid-19 but they did not know what else would. So for speed they were suggesting an alcohol based hand sanitiser. However this product has all the research to how that it is effective without the alcohol. Click here to visit the website to find out more.

Moving forward the reception team will be the most recognisable as the treatment room team will be greeting you with masks already in place. It is a newish team so for some of you this may be your first introduction to them. So whilst we are working hard to reopen the practice we thought we'd post a bit about the team.

Victoria

Most of you know Victoria. She has been with us for 4 years and recently came back from maternity leave in January so has had unexpected further time to spend with young Sophie over the last 3 months. Sophie keeps her nice and busy with long walks and getting messy with lots of messy play. Victoria loves baking so she has managed to get some baking in during lockdown as well as some gardening with Craig her husband.

Jodie

Jodie has been with us since September last year. She has been in the dental industry for 5 years. She genuinely loves it especially meeting new people. She has a 2 year old Daughter, Maisy. Jodie loves baking in her spare time. During lockdown Jodie has been keeping Maisy busy she has also been enjoying a new exercise routine and getting fitter.. with the odd bake in between!

Lucy

Lucy joined Gentle Dental in February. She has been in the dental industry for 21 years. She lives on a farm with her husband Adam and son Rowan and their Lagatto dog, Hattie. During lockdown the farm had some new arrivals...newborn calves. So Rowan and Lucy have been looking after them. Lucy and her family have been spending lots of time outside enjoying the farm along with some gardening, baking, school work and climbing trees.

Patricia

Patricia returned to us in February after a 3 year break. Previously she was with us 12 years. She has 3 cavalier king Charles spaniels Bertie, Dolly and Maisy. During lockdown Patricia has enjoyed taking the dogs on longer walks. She has kept her neighbourhood fed with her lovely baking and doing some decorating in her house.

We can't wait to welcome you all back to the practice very soon.

Take care and keep well

And we are under starters orders...

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hi again everyone on this grey day. We are really missing the sun but I have to say the garden (especially the weeds!!!!) is loving the rain.

As you are no doubt aware just this morning the Covid 19 countrywide risk level has been reduced to Level 3. Great news indeed and hopefully this downward trend will continue.

As the government keep pointing out, it is due to the fantastic response from all of us in adhering to the guidance about social distancing etc that is helping to achieve this and in looking at reopening we want to make sure we do everything in our power to ensure we contribute towards this downward trend.

One of the factors to consider regarding safety in dentistry is the fact that the majority of our treatments generate an aerosol (AGP). AGP is not a new thought process for us as this is something we have had to consider for years regarding HIV, Hepatitis B and C etc. Thus, why we have used PPE in the past.

The guidance we are following with the advent of Covid 19 states that we should not do any non-urgent AGP procedures until Level 3 has been declared and then only with the correct PPE. So, with today’s news we can finally put the final steps in place to reopen.

We now have some FFP2 face masks in stock and our fit testing is happening next week, 23rd June. This is however a bit of a ‘fingers crossed’ exercise. We have sourced a small supply of masks but not every mask fits everyone so you have to try different ones- which we have to supply at the fit testing session. Once we know which masks fits each person (and it may be a different brand for each of us) we then can order a proper supply so we can continuously operate when we do reopen. Another ‘fingers crossed’ moment to hope they are in stock!

In the meantime, we are spending time on risk assessments and rewriting our Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) taking into account the ‘new normal’. Staff training on all of this is starting next week. Although we have worked on all of this throughout lockdown the guidance has altered so often that there is still a lot to do. We want to make sure that when we do properly reopen our door to you that we are all completely trained on the ‘new normal’ so your interaction with us and your journey through the practice is smooth, trouble free and safe.

For the past few weeks, we (Rob and Niamh) have been running clinical/assessment days for any client who has a concern so that we can assess the situation and plan future treatment with them. (As I’m sure you can guess this is taking a lot of time so the weeds are most certainly winning!! Gardening can be such a thankless task J). We will continue to do this until we fully open so if you have any concern please feel free to contact us.

This is also giving us an opportunity to experiment and train ourselves on new technical systems as all follow up and discussion on treatment is happening via Zoom, Teams and other platforms for video calling. Neither of us are well versed in these so at times it is the blind leading the blind trying to talk a client through how to get their video or mic to work. And then we have to train the staff – or as they are more likely to be better at the tech side of things, perhaps they can train us when we can all be in the building at the same time.

We have worked out a timetable to prepare to open fully and July 6th was initially the date we were working towards. However, this is sadly looking a bit optimistic based on the mammoth job we have to do rebooking the hygienist diary and the number of new SOP we have to learn and rehearse. In order to ensure everyone is fully trained and confident with the new systems, realistically we will fully reopen on July 15th. For the sake of a week we do not want to rush and fall at the first hurdle. Our priority is to get everything right first time and ensure the safety of all involved. However, if everything is in place sooner, we will certainly reopen fully before the 15th.

Finally, can we offer a massive thank you for the cooperation from so many of you in allowing us to move your appointment a few months in order to see those who missed appointments during lockdown. We appreciate the kindness you have shown in helping us with this.

Please keep an eye on your emails for updates and we will be in touch by phone over the next few weeks for appointment rebooking. In the meantime, we will continue with training and preparing…… as well as waging war on weeds!

We are very much looking forward to seeing you all in the near future.

Rob, Niamh and the Gentle Dental Team.

And we're off! Gentle Dental practice is re-opening

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hi again everyone.

So, although we have been open (in some fashion) since June 8th we are now finally there. The dental practice will be up and running from Monday 13th July. We have spent the last few weeks working out how things will be, who needs to be where and when and most importantly how we ensure you and we are completely safe.

Risk assessments are done, signage is in place and we have practiced how we guide you through the building so that it now feels (slightly) more comfortable for us. Our main aim is to ensure that when you arrive at the practice you feel welcome, comfortable, safe and guided.

We’ve made 2 videos (you lucky people!) to explain how things will be for now as it is so hard to get it all down in writing.

Our first video is Just a quick message from us (Rob and Niamh) to explain a little bit about how your appointments will be for the "new normal"

Our second video is of your new journey through the practice, where you will need to enter the practice and how we will guide you through the practice. It would be really useful for you to watch this before your next appointment. Please click here to view.

Thank you all for your patience during this period. We are working our way through our lists as quickly as we can. Understandably many of you have a lot of questions and we want to take the time to reassure and advise you. So, keep asking the questions so you are as prepared and as comfortable as possible when you attend.

Now the last few weeks have been hard work but we have managed to fit in some fun as well. The team had a beautiful picnic lunch together in the Cathedral Close on one of those fabulously warm and sunny days (note Rob taking and afternoon nap) and an hilarious, socially distanced birthday celebration with Victoria. Just try blowing out birthday candles with a visor in place!! Just take a look here at the video! Eating cake was also interesting!

We had our face mask fit testing training just outside Bath and it was so exciting to actually have an excuse for a day out.

Lockdown madness was definitely confirmed when we decided we wanted fish and chips at the beach and cycled to Avon beach at Muddeford - almost 95K. At lease we ensured we worked off all of the calories in advance and the fish and chips tasted amazing.

And Rob has decided to take up modelling... He just cant decide between colourful shirt or baker model so has combined the two.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you all and will all be working very hard to make your visit with us as comfortable and fun as it was BC19 (Before Covid19)

Keep well, keep safe and see you all soon.

Rob, Niamh and The Gentle Dental Team

Watch a guided journey through our dental practice in Salisbury

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We felt a video of what your journey will look like once we reopen the Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury would be useful. We do hope you enjoy it.

We are really looking forward to seeing you at the practice soon.

*Please note the treatment room doors will be shut during appointments. For the ease of shooting the video these have been left open.

Keep Calm and Carry On... Cleaning at Gentle Dental practice

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Keep Calm and Carry on....Cleaning at Gentle Dental practice!

Lock down for Gentle Dental is now officially over. In many ways it has been a lovely sojourn however it is nice to be back to some sort of normality.

A snapshot of our 3 months is

April/May - Keep Calm and Carry on gardening/cycling/walking/cooking.

June - Keep Calm and Carry on planning/risk assessing/training.

And July ……. Keep Calm and Carry on Cleaning!!! Feeling like the proverbial washer woman/man/person!

Treatment room uniform plus 15 to 20 gowns need to be washed each night. Surfaces need to be cleaned and wiped on the stairs, in reception, the lounge and bathroom - numerous times per day

The treatment rooms’ surfaces were always wiped down between each client but now they are cleaned …. using 'fogging'. Our glorified weed killer containers -are working a treat and it makes the process of the process of cleaning and disinfecting the treatment room efficient, thorough and quick. Wish we had discovered Edge Protect years ago. Gown and fogging modelled by Rob (don't give up the day job) - click the photo for a short fogging video.

And of course the wonderful 'Sparklean' ladies have been working tirelessly to keep the remainder of the clinic spic and span. Before we reopened they spent 10 hour getting the building back to normal standards of cleanliness after 3 months of closure.

It has been a joy to see clients again and interesting to hear about various journeys through lockdown. Some funny, some sad but, to a person, relieved to see normality of a kind reasserting itself. It has been an interesting journey for us over the past 6 weeks as we get to grips with new systems and we want to give you a heads up on some of the new order.

Treatment plans, medical histories and consent to treatment will all be sent to you via Docusign. Apologies to those who received this in the early days as you were sometimes getting 6 emails. We have now figured out bulk sending so it will only be one email in future. If you don’t have a touch screen you just click on the signature box and sign using your mouse. We will send you a text to say we have forwarded paperwork for a signature so it doesn’t get lost in your system. Don’t worry if you struggle with computers as there will, of course, be the option to sign at the practice so please just let us know and we will arrange it all with you.

Zoom calls were the order of the day for staying in touch with family and friends over lockdown and we are now employing this system when we need to discuss treatment option with you.

We also have a remote system for new clients where they submit photos of the teeth; Artificial Intelligence creates a report based on this; Rob edits the report and provides his own comments; we then do a video consult to discuss the findings and finally book the client for x-rays and the all-important ‘eyes on teeth’ to confirm findings. Technology is so amazing and our new inquiries are loving it. Click the photo to have a look for yourself.

As you can see there is a lot for us all to get to grips with and many new systems to ensure we keep the correct communication with everyone. The team have been simply amazing in their enthusiasm and desire to ensure a smooth and calm experience for clients.

Finally, many of you will have heard in the news that practices are asking clients to pay up to £40 for the extra PPE necessary for an appointment. We wanted to reassure you that this is not something we are anticipating doing and currently there is no increase to our fees.

So, Keep Calm and Carry on Smiling... perhaps that will be our August theme!!

Rob, Niamh and the Gentle Dental team

Certainly not 'all work and no play...'

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The last few blogs have all been about reopening, cleaning and what to expect when you visit with us so we decided to start this newsletter with news about the team.

We managed a weekend away at Kimmeridge in our battered but lovely campervan Alice. We were very lucky as the weather was warm and sunny and we even managed to have a drink overlooking Corfe Castle - having done a 16km coast walk to get to there. We really must choose a campsite with a pub closer to hand next time!

Sadly, just like so many of you, we missed out on the annual Egan get together in Ireland. So instead we held a socially distanced visit with some of the Irish part of the family who live 'over here' at my (Niamhs) brothers in London. It was so good to see everyone again especially our beautiful nieces, even if we couldn't give them a hug.

And oh my but how time flies. Believe it or not Victoria has now been with us for 4 years and what a lot she has packed in. During that time she has gotten engaged, married, had a beautiful daughter Sophie and has still found time to do other things. During lockdown she has been getting all green fingered and has produced plants, both lovely to look at and to eat. After her family (and of course her work!!!) her big love is making and decorating celebration cakes for friends and family. Feast your eyes on these cakes. We've not tasted one yet but they sure look beautiful.

Lucy, or as we refer to her 'new Lucy' versus Lucy who was with us in 2019, is our newest member of the team and is busy, busy on their farm when not at work. Currently, like so many associated with farming, she is a farmers widow as her husband Adam is busy harvesting 2000 acres of grain. So she is occupied looking after their menagerie of calves, sheep, chickens, horses and dogs as well as making time for Rowan, their 5 years old son. She even manages to fit in an occasional dip in the pool.

More about the remaining staff members next time.

Hopefully for those of you who have been in to see us it has been more normal than you thought it would be. And we have to say it has been so good to welcome you back and get a semblance of normality into all of our lives.

We want to address the whole face mask thing. To wear or not to wear...that is the question!

We have discussed and risk assessed this as a team and we feel that the procedures we have in place for social distancing both for the team and clients negates the need for this when attending the practice. However should you feel more comfortable wearing one to your appointment please feel free to do so.

Below is a brief explanation as to why this may seem different to what you read in the press.

During lockdown, as well as having fun (see previous blogs), we as a private practice have been on a roller coaster ride. It turns out dental practices were unnecessarily closed down, not by the government but by the bodies who regulate us - Office of the Chief Dental Officer (OCDO) backed up by the General Dental Council (GDC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The OCDO very quickly abandoned ship with regard to private dentistry advising they regulated only NHS dentistry. Meanwhile our indemnity companies insisted we still had to follow the advice of the OCDO. Limbo!!

After it was announced we could reopen, in order to fill the gap for private dentistry, the Faculty of General Dental Practice (FGDP) issued guidance and this is what we are following -having been left hanging by all the other bodies. In this guidance it advises that 'clinical discretion and risk assessment' should be used regarding, among other issues, face coverings for clients.

Finally it has been really rewarding to be back at work and to finish outstanding treatments that started back in March. Some of our lovely clients have been waiting all through lockdown for veneers to be fitted, whitening to be started, to get their next set of Invisalign aligners so they can continue their journey towards a gorgeous smile. We hope to be able to share some of their pictures in our next newsletter.

In the meantime, just what is Rob going to do about this little fella's smile?

Tune in next time for the latest on 'the Fugglers' journey!

Keep well and safe and we are looking forward to welcoming you all over the next few months.

Rob, Niamh and the Gentle Dental Team

An update on this little guy, air filtration and PPE at the dental practice

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week we have actually done two blogs for you….lucky people! This one is a general one and the second which is linked below is for those of you who like to know the science behind it all.

So, we had a very exciting week this week. The air filtration units we bought in early May have finally arrived. Whoop! Whoop!

So why all the excitement? This allows us to reduce the down time, referred to as fallow time, that we have had to allow after each treatment since we reopened in June.

The guidance by the Faculty of General Dental Practice (FGDP) states that after every aerosol generating procedure (AGP) we need to allow time for the aerosol to settle before we clean the room and see another client. This fallow time starts as soon as we set down our handpiece and the recommendation is to allow an hour. We can then enter the room to clean it and set up for the next treatment.

Mitigating factors are allowed and those that we have applied are an open window during treatment and using high volume suction with a wide bore tip (previously 6mm now 18mm). We have carried out a risk assessment based on the information in the guideline to work out the relevant time to allow. To date we have had to leave 30 - 40 minutes, depending on the procedure. The air filtration, another mitigation factor we are allow to apply, will allow us to reduce this time considerable.

Following extensive research, we chose this particular model because it incorporates several factors which research indicates can help in reducing the risk from aerosols. These are high quality air filters and UV and ionising technology.

And now for the science. Follow the link if you want to know more.

I’ve mentioned aerosols already and want to talk a bit about the risk from them. For you as the client in the chair it is zero as the aerosol is generated from your mouth and will contain viruses etc that are already in your saliva. The risk is actually to the staff in the room thus the excess of PPE that we wear. The risk from aerosols for dental staff can never be 100% removed but the extensive PPE we wear reduces it to a negligible amount. There is also a risk to the next client to enter the treatment room. And this is why the extensive cleaning and disinfection we do between clients is in place and has been for all of my 30+ years in dentistry. If you are interested in the science on all of this follow the link.

Many of who have attended the practice have been interested in the hand and surface sanatiser we are using. The short version of the information on it is that it kills and protects against 99.99% of bacteria and enveloped viruses. It is proven to kill Coronavirus, MRSA, E-Coli and Norovirus and is laboratory tested to several BS EN standards. It can be used on all surfaces including soft furnishings, carries a CE mark and has a residual effect. That means it stays effective on a surface and acts on any bacteria and viruses that subsequently land there. Laboratory tests have shown it to be 58% effective on surfaces after 8 days. We are using this as hand sanitiser and as a surface cleaner on every surface in the practice including the soft furnishing, bannisters and bathrooms as well as in the treatment rooms.

The website for this product has a very easy to use shop if any of you are interested however free postage is only available for orders of over £60. We are more than happy to do a bulk order and refills for anyone who is interested and top up your bottles when required. If this is of interest to you let us know or just follow the link to their website to order for yourself.

Hopefully all of the above information will reassure you that we provide an incredibly safe environment for you when you attend the practice and that we have taken as many steps as possible to reduce the risk of infection for both you and the team.

Leaving all of the science behind the arrival of the air filtration systems allows us to reduce our fallow time and safely offer more appointments each day. We are still working our way through contacting all of you who missed appointment during lock down so we are incredibly grateful to everyone for the patience and understanding you have shown during this period.

On a different note we know that these are uncertain times for so many people with the possibility of redundancy looming and while we sincerely hope none of our clients find themselves in this position, we thought it worth mentioning that your membership includes redundancy protection. What this means is that your monthly membership payment is covered up to £15 each month while you seek a new position. The cover will be in place for up to 12 months or until you find a new position, whichever is first.

It is also worth noting that should your monthly membership fee be higher than this amount our policy is to refund the top up amount allowing you to keep up with your dental health while you get back on your feet.

Finally, for a bit of fun. In his fallow time Rob has been seeing a slightly unusual client. What do you think? I’m hoping this little guy loves his new smile and gives us a good review.

I know we promised more about the team in our last blog but we wanted to share with you the arrival of our air filtration system. Team updates will be in the next blog.

Keep well and safe.

Rob, Niamh and the Gentle Dental team

Now for the science! Staying safe at Gentle Dental in Salisbury

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

And now for the science! Learn how we are keeping everyone safe at Gentle Dental in Salisbury...

Every time we use a handpiece or the airflow in the hygienist room, we generate a spray which has 3 distinct parts. Spatter, droplet and aerosol.

Spatter is large particles and is visible on surfaces such as on the visors we wear. These particles are heavy and tend to hit the floor or any avilable surface fairly quickly.

Droplets are smaller particles and what tends to happen is that the liquid in them evaporates leaving the smaller nuclei suspended in the air.

Aerosol is the invisible minuscule particles (< 5um).

Both aerosol and droplet particles can remain airborne for 30 minutes to 2 hours.

And this is where our air filtration comes into play. The machine we have chosen is medical grade and acts on all of these particles to provide a safer environment in the treatment rooms

The system combines 8 different filtration technologies to filter all toxic particles while the filtration process consists of a multi-layer filter with 6 different technologies, a UV lamp, and an ioniser.

Multi layer filter:

Prefilter: traps all large particles (larger than one micron) such as hair and dust.

HEPA filter: HEPA is an acronym which designates a High Efficiency Particulate Air filter. These filter more than 99.97% of particles with a diameter greater than or equal to 0.3microns and are used in many medical and pharmaceutical settings.

Bamboo fibre: Bamboo has strong antibacterial and excellent particle filtration properties

Lysozyme: This is a molecule which is part of the immune system of most animals and provides a natural and effective action against microbes by attacking the cell walls.

Activated carbon: This is very effective against fine particles of pollution and has a high fixing and retention point meaning it hangs on to these particles very effectively.

Photocatalysis: a chemical reaction activated by the UV lamp which produces molecules which react with the pollution particles present in the air and degrades them.

Other technologies

UV Lamp: this is a powerful disinfection method against microorganisms and is a method frequently employed in operating theatres.

Ionisation: this is the only ‘active’ filtration method in these machines. Negative Ions (anions) are diffused in the air. Due to their polarity, these ions are highly reactive and will target pollution particles of positive polarity. They will either cause them to disintegrate or fall to the ground by weighing them down, thus ensuring your lungs are protected.

Interestingly negative ions are commonly associated with a feeling of wellbeing due to their presence in natural environments such as mountains, forests and waterfalls. The air filtration system will change the air in Robs room up to 8 times per hour and 11 in mine so with open windows as well the turn over rate will be higher.

The system has a remote display which adjusts the fan speed automatically depending on the indoor particle pollution level. monitors the levels of pollution in the air and adjusts the fan speed accordingly. The big number on the left side of the remote corresponds to the Particulate Matter (PM) level in the room and corresponds to fine particle pollution present in the air.

PM2.5 corresponds to fine inhalable particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. That is 30 times smaller than the average human hair!

The World Health Organisation recommends that PM2.5 does not exceed 25 ug/m3 24hour mean. As you will see from the picture of the remote midway through an airflow treatment, with the windows open, the level is 3 ug/m3.

However rather than having to keep an eye on the remote the makers of this machine realised in a busy environment you need a big and visual cue if there is a concern so there is a display bar on the front of the machine which works its way through Green (excellent air quality) Blue (moderate), Yellow (unhealthy) and Red (very unhealthy). Ours has stayed firmly in green through all of the treatment this week.

One final bit of science for you if you have the patience – our hand sanatiser/surface spray.

As the particles remaining after the air filtration are grounded and land on surfaces in the treatment room, they are neutralised by the residual effect of Xtra protect

Many of you have been surprised to find that the hand sanitiser is not alcohol based. So, let’s explain a little about this.

In the early stages of the pandemic the World Health Organisation advised us all to use 70% alcohol-based hand sanitiser as this is effective against the virus and is normally easily available.

In dentistry we have not used alcohol-based products for a long time as the alcohol sets the protein contained in saliva and blood making it difficult to effectively sanitise a surface. Thus our search for a product like this. There is more on this product in our main blog. Follow the link to find out more about it.

Keeping safe with a QR code at our Salisbury dentist

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sorry for the slightly delayed blog but I thought I should wait and see what was happening in the country before sending this newsletter out.

Let’s get the technical bits out of the way first. As you may be aware, it is now mandatory for certain business to display a track and trace QR code. Premises/businesses that must comply with this are: all hospitality venues; tourism centres; local authority facilities (community halls, libraries); and close contact services namely dental practices, hairdressers, barbers, beauticians etc.

Each business has to create a QR code with their business details and the requirement is for clients to scan it using the NHS Covid 19 app (downloadable free from the apple or google play store). This logs your date and time of entry to the business. My understanding is that the app runs in the background waking up when it senses another phone with the app coming into range. It will then use bluetooth every 15 seconds to measure how far away the other person is from you and the length of time this contact lasts. This data is used to build up a points score of how many times and how long someone has interacted with another person over the course of a day. Devices that come into close contact to you are logged for 28 days.

If a person subsequently tests positive for Covid 19 they enter this on the app which will ping the recorded contacted to a server to find out who has been in contact with the individual. Should the system determine a person as a close contact , they will be sent a notification asking them to self isolate for 14 days. The recipient of this notification is not told who has triggered this notification. If you receive an alert, even if you have no symptoms or later receive a negative test result, you must still isolate for 14 days.

So what we are requesting is that you download the app and scan the code when you arrive at the Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury. You don't need to download a QR code reader - it is all done through the app. Don't worry if you haven't got a smart phone. We will log your details manually within the practice and delete them after 21 days if NHS track and trace have not requested them.

You can read more about this on the .nhs link if you would like to find out more.

The app gives a risk level for your post code and Salisbury is currently amber risk. We have spent time rereading our guidelines and are please to say we comply with all the requirements for amber risk and currently can continue to see you for your appointments as planned/booked. We will be closely monitoring the situation and advice, and will of course let you know immediately should anything alter.

On a lighter note we promised a bit more of an introduction to some of the team members you will meet when you attend.

For so many of you Patricia needs no introduction. The practice opened in 2004 and Patricia worked with us from Feb 2006 until February 2017 when she retired to spend time with her husband Alan and her dogs. Alan sadly passed away in May 2019 and Patricia has started back with us part time. Any of you who remember Patricia first time around will recall that apart from Alan the great love of her life was, and still is, her dogs, Bertie, Maisy and Dolly.

Equal on her radar are her two lovely grandchildren, Ashton and Rose who have continued the love of dogs with a gorgeous puppy of their own, Carlos.

Jodie first came to our attention when she did work experience back in 2013. Sadly, we did not have a position when she finished school and started in dental nursing but she has found her way back to us now and has been with us for around 12 months, working on reception. Jodie works part time so you may not have come across her as yet. Jodie has a 2 year old daughter Maisie who has just started nursery and certainly keeps her buys when she is not at work. Over the last year Jodie has found some new loves in her life namely exercise and cooking. During lockdown she learned to cook from scratch which she has really been enjoying and experimenting with new flavours and new foods.

An update on our Lockdown gardening project- we are nearly there and hope to share pics with you next time.

Keep well and safe

Rob Niamh and the Gentle Dental Team

Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury remains open

Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Well autumn has well and truly arrived. When the sun is out and the sky is blue the colours of the leaves are just amazing. Every year I try to figure out if it really is my favourite season and I have decided it is…..until Spring rolls around and IT will then definitely be my favourite.

Sat here on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon putting this blog together I must say I'm glad we got a walk in yesterday afternoon and I could feel like I loved Autumn!

We have lots of news to communicate to you (again) so apologies that this is a very wordy newsletter.

The first bit of good news is that we are managing to catch up with all of your routine hygienist appointments. By now we have contacted everyone who missed an appointment while we were closed during March, April, May and June. We have also been in touch with all of our clients from June and July who kindly moved their appointment to accommodate those who missed during lockdown.

Many of you have now been seen and everyone has been contacted by voicemail or text. If you are one of the clients from these groups and you have not yet responded to the messages please get in touch so we can book you in. We are just starting to contact those of you who moved their August appointments so please get back in touch as soon as you receive the messages if we don’t manage to speak with you.

Now…the dreaded PPE. We field queries and hear stories from many of you as you have friends and family members who have had to pay a hefty fee for PPE when they attend their dental appointment. We want to reassure you that we are not making any additional charge for PPE when you attend.

And Membership fees. Normally in November a letter hits your door mat with information on a fee increase from January 1st. This year there will not be a letter as we have decided to repay the loyalty shown when our clients continued to pay the monthly fees during lockdown. Therefore, there will be no increase in membership fees in January.

And the final bit of good news needs a bit of explanation. In March when practices closed it was in response to a directive from the Office of the Chief Dental Officer (OCDO). Thereafter ensued several months of limbo for private practices as the OCDO advised they had nothing to do with private practices and every other dental regulatory body passed the buck. The result was the formation of the British Association of Private Dentistry (BAPD) so that private practices would have a voice. The following is taken directly from their recent communication and as you can see it means that we will not be forced to close down again and can continue to provide normal treatment as long as we are confident we have all the necessary precautions in place….and we are.

“As the government has raised COVID-19 alert level, we want to remind our members that they are able to continue as they have done since restarting practice. The safety measures are all in place, the guidelines are being followed and we should by now all have confidence in our SOPs and their practical application in our practices. The private sector has demonstrated a willingness to get back to a full service for patients as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible; with the hard work done, there should be no interruption to patient care.”

As a follow on to that we want to let you know that we have been so pleased with the air purifiers we purchased for the treatment rooms that we have installed some in the lounge and reception areas also. Our feeling is that we need to ensure we provide maximum reassurance and protection for both clients and staff in every area of the practice.

The large green figure is the measure of the particles in the air and as this rises the power of the fan increases and fluctuates up and down to keep the particle count at an acceptable level. Incidentally this picture was taken mid way through an airflow treatment which shows that our high volume suction really does its job well.

Finally, for those of you who were interested in purchasing the sanatising liquid we use, it is now in stock in several different sizes. To find out prices just reply to this email with your query and the reception team will be happy to help.

That’s the end of the good news from Gentle Dental…. for now. The good news from Rob and me is that we have finally finished the garden project that we started way back in April. This front garden has been a very unloved space for a number of years now. It is amazing what a bit of hard graft can do for a space.

Mind you the beautiful twisted hazel tree in the centre really helps.

Keep well and safe

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury is hiring

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Trainee dental nurse at Gentle Dental practice in Salisbury

We have a fantastic opportunity for a full time trainee nurse at our private dental practice in Salisbury for someone who wants to work in a friendly team and learn a broad range of skills working with an experienced dentist. We provide a range of services from family dental care, cosmetic dentistry and hygiene treatments to more specialised treatments such as teeth straightening and dental implants.

We are looking for someone who is friendly, empathetic, keen to learn and would like to progress their career.

What can Gentle Dental offer you:

Full-time hours – 40 hours per week
Full Training provided: 18-24 months course – external course provider fully funded by Gentle Dental.*
No experience necessary
Opportunity to work with a friendly and experienced team of professionals
Competitive rate
Pension Scheme
GDC registration paid for once qualified
Indemnity Insurance paid for

As a Trainee Dental Nurse:

You will be a team player and a good communicator who thrives upon delivering excellent standards of patient care
You will be responsible for providing chairside assistance, ensuring the care and welfare of patients is achieved in line with Gentle Dentals goals
You will drive to constantly deliver and improve the patient journey in line with Gentle Dental’s Visions and Values
You will undergo training as required to develop your skills and abilities

We have put the following measures in place to ensure the safety of our colleagues and patients:

New Standard Operating Procedure which we are reviewing on a weekly basis in line with evolving guidelines and recommendations
Full training for all colleagues on new processes
New equipment in place to manage infection control. We use air Purifiers and fogging systems in our treatment rooms to provide the best possible environment for our teams and clients.

Gentle Dental have been providing dental care in Salisbury for over 16 years, Please visit our website to find out more about us www.gentle-dental.co.uk If you would like to find out more about this Trainee Dental Nurse vacancy please press apply. Alternatively, please feel free to share this opportunity with friends or colleagues.

How to Apply: If you wish to apply please submit a covering letter along with your CV to [email protected]

Please be aware if you have not been contacted within 14 days of your application your application has been unsuccessful.

* Subject to completion of the course and a further 12 months of employment at Gentle Dental

Gentle Dental in Salisbury Christmas tree trail

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It certainly didn’t feel terribly clever to leave the dental practice and head out around Salisbury on a very cold evening, inappropriately togged out as we’ve had such mild weather, to kick start the festive feeling.

Madness it may have been but it has certainly worked to get the Christmas spirit going. The Christmas tree trail is beautiful with one of the 12 days of Christmas themed on each tree and it takes you on a wonderful journey around the town to see Salisbury in all of its splendour. The only thing missing was a mulled wine to warm us up on the way.

I have to admit to being slightly surprised to find Wiltshire was in tier 2 as, to my knowledge, the R rate here has been consistently fairly low. We have taken time after the announcement to trawl through the updates from the various bodies that regulate us and are happy to tell you that dental practices can remain open and offering treatments, as long as the correct PPE is used and correct procedures are followed. So Gentle Dental will remain open for you and provide all of the dental services you would expect from us.

Which leads me on quite nicely to Christmas closure. The dental practice will be open until lunchtime on Wednesday 23rd of December and we are reopening on Monday January 11th. We are very aware of our responsibilities in ensuring the safety of both you, our wonderful clients and our amazing team. With the guidance allowing mixing over the Christmas period we feel the way to guarantee we keep everyone as safe as we possibly can is to allow 14 day period after this before we return to work. That way we can all see our families (very excited that Saoirse can return from Uni for a few days) and return to work confident that we have minimised the risk to others as much as we possibly can.

Please be reassured that Rob will be available should you have toothache or just require dental advice. It is worth reminding you that as a member of the dental practice (Practice Plan) you do have emergency cover so if we did need to open the dental practice for you the fees are covered by your membership. If you are not on our membership and want to find out how to join so you have the reassurance of emergency cover just contact the reception team who will be happy to help.

The hand and surface disinfectant is proving very popular and we do now have more in stock. We hadn’t quite anticipated the demand but we are on it now! We are stocking:

100ml hand disinfection spray bottle - perfect for pocket or handbag and so much kinder to your skin than the alcohol-based ones. We use this several times for each client and only have to refill it about every 2 weeks so a little goes a long way.
500ml perfect for door handles and surfaces as well as a handy way to refill your hand disinfectant bottle
500ml bottle refill – We are happy to top up your bottle from our large containers when you run out.
5litre container if you fancy just having your own ready supply for refills.

Although we are working to an ‘only attend for a booked appointment’ policy we are more than happy for you to call and arrange a time to pop in for refills etc or indeed supplies of TEPE brushes etc. We would appreciate a heads up so we can arrange a time for you to arrive which does not coincide with the arrival of other clients.

Finally, a call to you all to ask you to shop local this Christmas and support your indies.as much as you can. A quote I recently heard from one independent shop owner "To you it may be just shopping...to us it means everything". Many of these shops have invested heavily during lockdown and are offering online browsing as well as a click and collect service. And if you are giving vouchers/gift cards to family and friends this Christmas perhaps you could consider buying the Salisbury gift card which can be spent in many of the independent shops around town. To find out more follow the link to the Salisbury Independents website and more info can also be found on the Salisbury Bid website.

We hope you continue to stay safe, well….and sane and we will be in touch with you again before Christmas.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Emergency dentist in Salisbury

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In this month’s blog: Emergency dentist in Salisbury over Christmas and an intro to new staff member news.

What a year. Definitely up there with the year we got married and when our kids were born as one not to forget... for many reasons. We truly hope next year is better for all of you - our Gentle Dental family. TG we are not trying to figure out how to work within the rules to see all of you for Christmas. However, we thought we couldn’t let the season pass without letting you all catch a glimpse of us letting our hair down. Unfortunately, we could only get 5 elves at a time so you get the joy of seeing myself and Rob live it up... not once but twice! And a look at Robs moves that the video was modelled on!!!!

We also had Christmas jumper day this week or in Robs case, Christmas shirt day.

As you may have noticed we have been using locum and agency dental nurses since Shilpa left last January. We have finally managed to take the time to employ our own staff. We have employed one trainee and one qualified nurse.

Jess started with us 2 weeks ago. Her background is in hospitality so her customer service skills are top notch making it much simpler for us to help with her dental nurse training.

Liz will be joining us as a nurse in January. She trained as a nurse many hears ago but has been working in the beauty industry for the last 20 years. This means she is up to date on all of the cross-infection control necessary within a treatment room and just needs to brush up on the dentistry element of her role.

Kat is a locum nurse who has been with us off and on over the last 5 years. She is staying on with us 2 days per week to help out with training. We hope they will all become as familiar to you as the rest of our fabulous team.

You may have noticed that the title and first line of this blog is a little different than usual. I hope you will forgive me but while keeping the blogs personal to our current clients I am also exploring how to make them more search engine friendly so that they pop up when a search is made. It will not change the content simply the title and perhaps a word or two in the article.

As we said before we are closed from 1pm on Wednesday 23rd December until Monday 11th January. The longer closure is to ensure we have 14 days clear after any mingling with family over Christmas and to the best of our ability ensure we keep everyone safe. However, we are totally contactable should any of you have a problem or need advice over this time. Just call Rob on 07896851563 or call the practice on the normal number for details on how to contact Rob should the need arise. From January 4th I will be monitoring messages and emails so feel free to contact us with any non-emergency queries during that week.

This is a link to our 'what to do in a difficult dental situation' advice sheet created and shared during the initial lockdown. Rob looks a little different now as he has had to lose the beard - not allowed with FFP2/FFP3 masks as they affect the fit. Not that you’d notice with all the PPE we have to wear.

Many thanks for all of your patience with the new systems over the last months. We are introducing a different system for the electronic paperwork we need you to complete before your visit so watch your inbox. Hopefully it will make it easier for you. Instead of DocuSign most of it will be from Gentle Dental with our usual branding. Some paperwork will still need to be done through DocuSign but the team will let you know what to look out for each time.

We are finding our new system of calling a month in advance to book your hygiene appointment quite labour intensive as we don’t manage to contact many of you during the day. So we have set Patricia up to work remotely and she is going to do her calls in the early evening and on a Saturday morning. Don’t be surprise to see a call from Gentle Dental at an unusual time.

We are incredibly fortunate in that we are very busy currently and this is all thanks to you our amazing clients. Between you all you have referred xx friends and family members to us in the last 12 months. And the majority of clients who have found us through a google search (other search engines are available!) have been swayed by the amazing review you have all given us. We cannot thank you enough for your support.

As you may be aware, we make a £10 charity donation for each personal referral received and we have decided as the reviews are more or less a personal recommendation to make a £10 donation when people mention this as the reason they chose us. Since Jan 1st 2020 we have had 106 new clients through our doors. So we will be donating £1060 to our chosen charity.

In previous years we have supported Salisbury Hospice and Operation Smile UK - Robs Ghana trip. We were deciding what charity to support this year when lockdown happened so the decision was never finalised. We have had a discussion as a team and the reality of the situation regarding homelessness many are facing with the large number of redundancies recently was what we felt we would like to support. We therefore have decided to support Salisbury Trust for the Homeless, in retrospect for 2020 and to continue this support through 2021. We hope this meets with your approval.

It simply remains for us to wish you all a Happy and Safe Christmas and a New Year that is better for all.

Keep well and safe.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Covid vaccination and Covid testing at Gentle Dental

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Who can believe it is February already? I know time is supposed to go faster as you get older but the speed with which January went by was a bit ridiculous. In many ways that was a good thing though. I can now see the slight stretch in daylight in the evenings and it is lovely to see all the green shoots of snowdrops, crocus and daffodils poking through the ground. Of course, now we have a newly done up front garden we have sown bulbs and have exactly 8 snowdrops! No idea what has happen to the other bulbs I sowed. I know I have a long way to go to get to a display like this picture but here’s hoping for a better showing next year.

Covid vaccination and testing

News this month is that any of the team members who can have a vaccination for COVID 19 have now received their first dose. We are feeling very fortunate as health professionals to have been included in the first round and sincerely hope that the roll out continues at this pace so everyone can be vaccinated as soon as possible. I had mine done at Salisbury Cathedral last Saturday, which I believe from the news, was a record day for the number of vaccinations administered. I must say it was a very well organised and a well-run set up. There was a queue of about 70 people when I arrived at 9.04 and I thought I’d be there for hours. Including the 15-minute wait after receiving the vaccination, I as on my way again by 9.36. Every team member, from the people guiding you to your place in the queue to the administration, clinical and staff cleaning chairs after you had your 15-minute wait was so professional. I had fun in my post vaccine wait watching the naughty over 70’s getting nabbed as they tried to exit 10-12 minutes in to their wait time. Nice to see the naughty child lives in in so many.

Hearting news is the early results seem to indicate that not only does the vaccine reduce the risk of catching COVID-19 but may also reduce your ability to spread the virus. It has given a faint glimmer of hope for a return to something approximating normal. My dreams – sitting in the sun with a friend for a coffee; or in a pub garden on a warm evening with a glass of wine; visiting Bath, London or Bristol or walking by the coast. So many things that were so every day and now seem like veritable luxury.

We have also stepped up our efforts to keep everyone, team and clients, safe and are now carrying out lateral flow tests twice weekly. It has taken me a bit of time to get my head around the whole testing thing. Perhaps by now you have picked up on the fact that I am a Radio 4 fan and I heard a brilliant interview with a professor who put it all in context for me. Most of you probably have already figured this out but I was very slow on the uptake. There has been a lot of negative press about lateral flow tests and how inaccurate they are. What I failed to appreciate is that it is purely a screening device and not a diagnosis. A proper COVID-19 test is indicated if the lateral flow shows positive. The idea of them is that they can pick up on an infection before systems appear and/or in the absence of symptoms thus reducing the timespan in which and the number of people to which the infection can be passed.

Glitches!

We are now a month or so into our new system for electronic paperwork and this has been far from smooth but we are beginning to get a better idea of which bits work and which we need to ditch. In effect we will now only be using the new system to check your personal details are correct and for your medical history. Most of the other forms are standard, cannot be altered and not suited to our practice. My pet hate was the marketing form which talks about products and services. Hopefully you have noticed that it is a long time since we have done direct marketing for any products and services. The only communication we do other than appointment and treatments you have discussed with us is our newsletter.

Have you guessed by now that this is leading up to an apology? Some of you will be receiving a different permissions form on DocuSign . I know you have likely recently filled one in or will have completed it in the past but the new system has wiped those permissions. GDPR means we need to redo this with you and will probably nag you a little to get the form back. Your cooperation is appreciated with completing this exercise.

As you may be aware, we have also been running a different system with booking your routine hygienist appointment and we are about to tweak this again. From early March we will start to send out a recall email which will ask you to reply giving an idea of ideal days and times for you. We will then make and email you an appointment. We are finding it very time consuming to catch everyone on the phone to make the appointments so hopefully this will streamline things and mean you get fewer nagging calls, texts and emails from us. Patricia will be running this for me so the recall email will give both her working hours and her direct line if you need to call to sort an appointment.

Staff News

Now the news that is both exciting and saddening in equal measure. Victoria is expecting her second child in July - exciting- so we lose her for another period of time- saddening, thus my earlier reference to team members who can receive the vaccine vaccin.

Lucy, Jodie and Patricia are hopefully very familiar to you now so continuity should continue with regard to the faces you see when you visit. We are advertising for a new reception team member so if you know anyone with a dental background who you feel would fit with our team please send them a link to our advert. The advert is available on Instagram, Facebook and the blog page on our website.

We continue to stock the edge protect hand and surface sanitiser and all of the usual toothbrushes, floss picks etc as normal. I hadn’t realised that many of you were waiting until you had an appointment to get your hands on these bits and pieces. We are more than happy for you to come and collect things as you need them rather than just at a booked appointment. Simply call reception to say when you will be in town and they will give you a time slot to arrive so that we don’t have numerous people arriving at the same time. If getting here is difficult we can arrange to drop things off if any of us live in the vicinity or post things to you - there may be a small fee to cover the cost of the postage.

So, here’s to warmer longer days and many more vaccines rolled out.

Keep well and safe.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Gentle Dental is hiring a new Dental Receptionist

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Gentle Dental in Salisbury is looking for a dental receptionist. Dental experience is essential and apologies, but applicants without this cannot be considered.

This is not your typical dental reception role; it is much more exciting. You are involved in the client journey, not just simply booking an appointment and taking money. We are a husband-and-wife clinical team (dentist and hygienist) without the usual dental practice hierarchy. Each team member is equally important and no one is too highly qualified to do the mundane jobs like clean a floor or loo. Without an amazing nurse or admin team member, great dentistry and a friendly clinician just isn’t enough. The customer service is really what keeps clients coming back and recommending us to others. We know that happy clients mean a happy team. Our reception team are the lynchpin of the practice. Your role is one of administrator, receptionist and client coordinator. In a typical day you will be: booking remote consultations; following up clients who have requested a call back, perhaps about booking a treatment plan or ways to spread treatment payments; preparing the necessary paperwork for upcoming appointments (medical history update, COVID-19 questionnaire, treatment consents); chasing up unreturned paperwork; answering the phones; contacting/registering new clients and explaining our new client journey; linking with the clinical team for triage on emergency queries; or arranging payment plans/finance.

Wage is £11-£13 per hour depending on experience. Additional benefits paid for by the practice areGDC registration and indemnity insurance are paid by the practicePension schemeStaff discount dental plan availableAll core CPD is paid for by the practice.

If you want to join a practice where things are done in a different way (even down to the dentist helping to clean the treatment room!) please contact Niamh with a personal statement along with your CV and explain why you feel you would be suited to our [email protected]

Is this the beginning of the end?

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It would seem that there is an end in sight for Lockdown and a new beginning visible in the distance. I know none of us dare get our hopes up too much so as not to be disappointed but I’m hearing tentative plans from lots of clients now - always with a … perhaps we may or a… we hope to… Hopefully this is not a false dawn and we can return to some semblance of normality in the very near future.

At Gentle Dental the team have begun to think about what this new normal will look like. Will we go back to how things have been before? Will we have some restrictions that still remain? Do we and you prefer how things run now? Many, many discussion to be had and decision to be made over the coming months.

One thing that has been reviewed and is changing is what happens when you have an appointment on a Thursday. In order to comply with the ‘work from home if you can’ requirement some of the staff have been doing exactly that so that we only have one team member on reception. This means that on a Thursday Victoria is on the desk alone. She is now 4 months into her pregnancy and we have decided that carrying boxes of bags and coats is not a good idea so if you have an appointment on a Thursday in the next few months you will need to come to the main/front door.

Current guidance is that while the country is on this alert level there should be no face-to-face contact past 28 weeks into a pregnancy so likely we will ask those of you who attend on a Thursday to do the necessary temperature check yourself. Please don’t be offended when Victoria retreats behind the perspex while you do this. She wants to stay working in her current role until she goes on leave at the end of June and these few alterations to the routine allows this to happen. Many thanks in advance for you understanding and assistance. A gentle reminder also about the Covid 19 questionnaire we send out a few days before your appointment. The requirement for this comes from our governing body and it will need to continue until the guidance alters. Having had the vaccine does not do away with the need for you to answer this. I know the vaccine reduces your risk of becoming seriously ill but it does not completely remove the risk of you catching or spreading the virus. So, a request to still complete this even if you have had the vaccine - many others have not as yet.

Now all the housekeeping bits are out of the way I thought I would talk Electric toothbrushes. I’m frequently asked about what one to use. This is a personal view point based on (far too many) years in the business and may not be precisely what you would be told by another hygienist. To my mind the two best brands on the market are Braun/Oral B or Phillips. These are the two that invest the most in R&D of their electric brushes and having trialled many over the years they are the ones that deliver the best clean - when used properly of course. But which one is right for you?

I know this is going to sound strange but I tend to make my recommendation to you based on personality. For those of you who are ‘get it done’ and are already thinking about the next thing on the ‘to do’ list I recommend the Oral B electric toothbrush. While I recommend the Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush for the ‘I am focused on this right now and I know I have other things on my list but I will think about them when I have finished this’ person. Why? My experience is that the latter find the Oral B too aggressive and it feels almost like a jack hammer going off in the mouth. The flip side is that the Phillips Sonicare just feels too gentle and like it isn’t doing anything for those who are already focused on the next step of their day.So now you know which brand to choose. Which brush? There are so many! I’m going to cover Oral B this month and will cover the Phillips range next time. Otherwise there will be no end to this blog!

If you want to know more about the Oral B Electric toothbrush range and which might be right for you click the link which will take you to another Blog with all of the detail.

And finally - I have given in and undergone a home haircut. As you may be aware barbers traditionally had a red and white pole outside their business and its origins can be traced back to the middle ages. The history is that as well as being a barber they were the ones who performed any necessary surgery and dentistry. So Rob is just going back in time and reviving a role from long ago. I’ve got to say judging from the end result I got the better end of the deal and am definitely sticking to being a hygienist.

Keep well and safe

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team .

Oral B Electric toothbrush range

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Oral B electric toothbrush range has several different series of brushes - Genius range, Smart series and Pro. The main difference in all of these is the gadgetry and of course the price. In this article I give a little information about each range and I hope it will make it a little bit easier for you when you next decide to buy an Oral B toothbrush.

Oral B Pro Electric toothbrush

Pro is a basic range and does exactly what it says on the tin.One button on and off no smart phone app. This range has a pressure sensor and a warning light on the handle (only on one side of the brush) when you are brushing too hard.

Oral B Smart Series electric toothbrush

The Smart Series has 6 different cleaning modes for daily care, deep clean, gum care, whitening, tongue cleaning and a sensitive mode. Most of the modes require a different head to work efficiently. It has pressure control technology which reduces brushing speed and alerts you to be gentler if you brush too hard and has a free-standing timer so you monitor how long you spend brushing. This has lots of smiley faces and stars when you spend the correct length of time.

Oral B Genius electric toothbrush

The Genius introduced the first intelligent brushing system It connects to an app on your smart phone and has position detection technology to give a visual of which area you are brushing which means you don’t miss any areas as you brush. It incorporates Gum Guard technology, 360 SmartRing and Pressure Control alert. This basically means the pressure warning light encircles the entire brush and warns you to reduce speed when you brush too hard as well as showing you where you are over brushing. This range can have up to 8 cleaning modes – daily clean, gum care, sensitive and super sensitive, whitening, deep clean, intense, and tongue clean. Again, different heads are needed for the different modes.

Oral B IO electric toothbrush

And the new IO series – obviously it has an app. It works on a drive system powered by a magnetic motor which means there are fewer vibrations than with the other ranges and it drives each bristle individually rather than powering the entire head in one movement. It gives you the kind of clean feeling you have when you leave the hygienist, every time you brush. AI teeth tracking monitors and shows the tooth surface you are brushing ensuring you reach every part of the tooth it is possible to reach with a brush. It also even reminds you when it is time to change your toothbrush head and gives you a smiley face for a job well done.

I was fortunate to receive a trial version of the new Oral B IO last summer (Rob is very jealous) and I have to say it really does leave you with that just visited teh hygienist feeling when used correctly.

My round up on these brushes is that the research show they remove more plaque than a manual toothbrush. Which one to choose depends on how much of a technology person you are and how much you are willing to pay. If the app bit motivates you go for it. If you really don’t want to interact with an app the simple Pro brush will do just as good a job.

Next month I’ll cover the Phillips Sonicare range.

Team Update and Exciting news

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Isn’t it lovely to see the sun and hide in sheltered corners of the garden to catch the warmth? I can hardly believe it is over a year since the start of lockdown and approximately a year since I first started doing a regular blog/newsletter to you all. Time flies and even thought it has been a weird 12 months it does seem to have passed in a flash, for me anyway.

I thought it might be nice to update you on the team and give you a snapshot of what we’ve all been up to during the current lockdown so each of them has written a little bit for you. The blog was so long that I have split it and will do an update on the other team members next time.

Lucy

I reached a great mile stone in the autumn, I turned 40 and they say this is when life begins don’t they? I guess they hadn’t anticipated 2020/21!

Although life hasn’t yet really begun again I am certainly busy. My son Rowan is now 6 and keeps me very busy. We are always out and about on adventures, be it in the woods, on our farm, having days out or playing in the garden.

I have recently invested in a Dutch bike, so I can now be seen riding (badly) around Stockbridge and the surrounding areas (finding the odd pub on route) with him, it is bright orange so can’t be missed! Beep and give me a wave if you see me.

It has been a successful year on the farm too, with lots of healthy calves being born as well as some chicks, from a handful of Chickens to loads over night! Rowan loves looking after them and takes his job very seriously.

As with all of us, we didn’t get to go on any of our planned holidays this year, but are feeling hopeful that we get to go skiing over Christmas, but who knows!

Cricket season is upon us, so I expect most of my Saturdays will be taken up with scoring for my husband Adams’ team and generally enjoying being outside. Rowan has just taken up football, cricket and beavers, with swimming on a Sunday too. I escape to Gentle Dental for some peace and quiet.

Victoria

So much has happened over the last 6 months. As many of you already know Craig and I are expecting our second baby at the end of July – another girl. Pregnancy and juggling a 2 year old is definitely keeping me nice and busy. I’m never short of things to do!

We also moved house at the start of the year moving out of town to a village. Sophie loves being outdoors, whatever the weather, and going on lots of walks to find bugs and flowers! She recently made friends with a wiggly worm who had to have a “turn” on the wobbly toy horse at the local park!

I still manage to find time to make and decorate cakes for friends and family though I’m not sure how much longer I will be easily able to stretch to the cake. I think my arms need to grow along with the bump to allow me to do things.

Jodie

Its official I now have a 3 year old! It seems like yesterday she ws a tiny baby. This year has been a tough one but being able to watch her grow has been amazing. She’s gone from a baby to a beautiful intelligent little girl. One of the few good things about the pandemic was it gave me time to spend on potty training and getting rid of the dummy. What a sad life when time to potty train is a highlights

At the start of the first lockdown I couldn’t cook unless it came from a package. I’ve now learnt to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients and have even mastered making sourdough and keeping a sourdough starter alive. However, this is dangerous as it tastes sooo good that I can’t stop eating it. Coupled with Easter and lots of chocolate eggs I think I need to restart my weight loss regime!

Jess

After some time living where I couldn’t exercise my green finger passion, I finally have a garden. I’ve been enjoying seeing weed filled spaces take on some shape - if not always enjoying the effort it took to get there! I managed to find a greenhouse I could afford and am now very proud to show off my seedling. I’ve recently become vegetarian so I’m hoping for a bumper crop of organic fruit and vegetables from my garden to keep me supplied for a while.

My cat Phoebe is also loving country living and has adopted a host of feral cats as friends. It certainly does keep me on my toes keeping them out of the house

The reception team have asked me to communicate with you about toothache. It is their observation that Monday morning frequently brings a call or an email from a client who has been in pain all weekend but not wanted to call and disturb Rob. They wanted me to remind you all that if you are in pain and need to be seen or at least to receive advice that we do an ‘on call’ service. (Basically, its Rob). Now while Rob does appreciate this courtesy from you all he also hates to think you have been suffering the entire weekend. Often, he can give advice over the phone that will sort the problem or if necessary, he will arrange a time to meet you at the practice to get you out of pain. Simply call the practice on the usual number and it will tell you how to get in touch.

Also remember that as part of your membership plan you do have emergency cover as a benefit. This means that if he does need to see you at the clinic, you do not pay a fee. We simply claim on your membership. Sadly, for those of you not on the membership there is a call out fee. Feel free to contact the reception team to find out more details on the membership if you would like to understand more about this and other benefits.

Next exciting news - at least we think it is. We are putting in another treatment room next door to the hygiene room and this will be completed by the end of August. We ideally wanted a downstairs treatment room. However, to afford the investment for this means we need an associate on board and already busy. So plan B. As you know we now have a stairlift to the corridor where my treatment room is so with very little structural work we can set up a surgery one room further along from mine.

We are currently advertising for an associate and have employed the services of a business planning company we work with to assist in the interview process. The difficult we have had with our recruitment so far is that we choose nice people but are not making a great fist of sussing out whether they buy into our ethos or not. Fingers crossed for 3rd time lucky.

We will also be advertising for another hygienist two days per week to work in the new treatment room. We will not be cutting back on my clinical time and will in effect be providing six clinical days of hygiene per week rather than the current four.

Finally, I have also put together the promised blog on Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrushes. I have to say that although I do rate them as a very good brush, I was surprised how little I really knew about them. Researching them online I realised why. The definitely market them on the sleek look and stylish design rather than the clinical capabilities. Hopefully the info I’ve provided gives enough of a picture for you to make an informed decision but it certainly was more of a slog than the Oral B electric toothbrush blog.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and fingers crossed the weather is kidn to us. We are making our first foray in our battered camper van. Who knew you could get so excited about driving an hour down the road to a field and have so much fun planning different walks and cycles. Happy days!

Keep well and safe.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Phillips Sonicare Electric Toothbrush

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Phillips Electric Toothbrushes

There are several different types of toothbrushes in the Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush range - Prestige, Diamond clean, Protective Clean Expert Clean and Daily Clean with the main differences being the gadgetry and the price.

Phillips definitely markets on the look, colour and feel of the brush rather than on the efficiency. This does not make it a poor option for an electric toothbrush. It just makes it harder to find out the actual specification and efficiency of the brush.

How does it work

Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrushes have a sonic sweeping motion with up to 62000 brush head movements per minute. This creates gentle microbubbles and this sonic motion gently drives fluid between the teeth while the strokes from the bristles break down the plaque and sweep it away from the gum margins.

Prestige 9900

This electric toothbrush uses AI to sense motion and coverage. It adapts its intensity if you brush too hard. My understanding is it therefore does not have several modes as it automatically adapts to your needs. It connects to an app and feeds back in real time to help ensure you reach every tooth surface.

Sonicare Diamond Clean

Diamond Clean connects to an app which gives you a progress report thus letting you see how much you have improved over time. The brush has built in smart sensors which let you know when you are using too much pressure. It has four modes - Clean, White+, Gum Health and Deep clean plus - all of which are fairly self-explanatory. The brush also has three intensities on all of these modes which means you get to choose between a high intensity to boost your cleaning or a lower one for a more sensitive mouth. This range also have a prompt to tell you when to change your brush head as well as automatic selection of mode depending on which smart head you have popped onto the brush – it will select whitening mode when you use a whitening toothbrush head.

Expert Clean

The main difference I can see between this range and Diamond clean is this range has three modes and three intensities. The missing mode is the whitening one. Otherwise, it has the same app connectivity, replace brush head warning, pressure sensors to wark if you are pressing too hard and mode selection depending on the head on the brush.

Protective Clean

This is a fairly basic model without gadgetry. It has one mode and does not connect to an app. It does still have the smart had technology which means it warn you when it is time to replace your toothbrush heads. It does not have a visible pressure warning system but pulses when you press too hard.

In summary, the Phillips Sonicare range of brushes are very sleek and the research quoted indicates removal of between 7-15 time more plaque than manual tooth bushing alone. The choice of which one to get comes down to the cost, and how simple you want to keep it all. The research does seem to show the whitening mode will help to maintain the colour following whitening treatment and/or a hygienist visit. Personal opinion is that without out one or other of these it will not necessarily make you teeth look whiter. So, it all comes down to the app and how many modes you fancy.

I hope to cover the different brush heads in both ranges in another blog over the next few months and hopefully will help to take the stress out of which one to choose.

Summer Newsletter

Fri, 20 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I hope you have all been enjoying the wonderful English summer and this one has certainly lived up to the reputation, throwing every kind of weather (other than snow and frost) at us in quick succession. Apologies that I have been so tardy with a news update. That task tends to fall to a Friday afternoon and I seem to have prioritised getting away in our camper or going for a walk/bike ride! I was a bit shocked to realise it was three months ago since I last communicated with you other than procedural updates. The summer months have definitely gone by quickly. I'm already noticing a slightly autumnal feel to the mornings...and people have started mentioning the 'C' word and how it will soon be here!!

Team News

Victoria

I promised news about the remaining team members when we did the last newsletter but feel I must firstly get the baby news in.

Victoria and Craig welcomed their second daughter, Rosie Emma Hislop on July 22nd. Both Victoria and Rosie are doing well and little Sophie has taken to sisterhood like a duck to water.

Jo

With Victoria on maternity leave for the next year we desperately needed another team member on the reception/admin side and welcome Jo to the team in June.

‘Originally from the North, I moved to Salisbury 2 years ago with my husband and 2 little girls. We are really beginning to settle down and lay some roots, after 3 years living in the Channel Islands. We have recently bought our house, both of my children are settled at their schools and now I have a great new job to focus on. I’m feeling very lucky to be working with such a lovely team! It’s been such a tough year, so I’m really enjoying making the most of the extra freedom we have at the moment, and my weekends have usually been filled with trips to Paultons Park, visits to the beach and walking in the New Forest. I’m looking forward to some trips away in our camper van soon, there are so many amazing places to visit on our doorstep. When we haven’t been clocking up the miles road tripping, we’ve really enjoyed some quiet afternoons in the garden. My girls love nothing more than splashing around in the paddling pool or playing with the sand pit. My youngest daughter loves digging for worms and turning over bricks looking for bugs. She certainly didn’t inherit that from me!’

Patricia

Long standing client will know Patricia from years ago. She worked with us from 2006 for 2017 when she retired. Obviosuly she missed us so much that she came back!

‘I had just started back at Gentle Dental working part time when lockdown happened. Until recently I have been working from home but I am now back in the practice one day a week. I’m really enjoying this as it is nice to actually be with the rest of the team and to see some of you face to face. I do enjoy home working as well though as I spend lot sof time making calls to you all and you all know how I love to chat! This also allows me to spend more time with my dogs, King Charles Spaniels. Sadly Dolly, one of my dogs passed away a few months ago so myself and the boys miss her terribly. However the gap is filled at times as I also look after my daughter’s dog Carlos (the very tired white one below) one day a week. They certainly keep me busy (and fit) when I’m not working for Gentle Dental.

Niamh and Rob

Rob and I have had an enjoyable summer. We have spent lots of weekends away in our camper walking and cycling; as well as spending time in the garden. There havve been many learning curves for a novice gardener!

As our project to revamp the front garden was done in the original lockdown it was a case of make do and recycle. I therefore decided to keep this theme going and have scavenged plants/cuttings from friends’ gardens so the flowerbed is eclectic to say the least. I seem to have spend the whole summer waiting for things to bloom. I suddenly realise why people go for bedding plants so this is on the ‘to do’ list for next year.

Ireland finally allowed travel and I have managed to go home several times to see my family now. So many people are still waiting to be able to visit family so I realise how fortunate I have been. My dad celebrated his 90th birthday in June and my parents 60th wedding anniversary was in July. The planned big family get together unfortunately couldn’t happen but we did manage a small gathering. BTW my parents garden is what I aspire to – as you can see, I have a long way to go!

Gentle Dental news

As any of you who have recently been in or contacted us to make an appointment will know, our diaries are currently very booked up. We just want to let you know that we are addressing the situation and are currently installing a 3rd treatment room, just down the corridor from the hygiene room. We are interviewing for a dentist or dental therapist to join the team and this will ease the situation in both Rob and my diary.

A dental therapist can do all of the hygiene work but can also do fillings. The plan would be to book simple fillings in his/her diary thus freeing up space in Robs for more complex treatment. I will not be dropping any of my clinical days but we hope to provide at least one extra day of hygiene each week which should make bookings easier.

Jessica who has been with us as a trainee for the last 6 months has decided dental nursing is not for her so has left us for pastures new.

Dental nurses are like gold dust at the moment and we are recruiting both qualified and trainees. In the interim we have got our long term locum Kat and Amanda who has worked as a locum with us in the past. This is topped up with agency when we cannot book them so apologies for different faces when you attend. We have just today taken on a trainee and a qualified nurse so hopefully they will become long term members of the team. To reassure those of you who prefer your appointment in my room without a nurse, I will be having the trainee in with me at times but only for note taking and cleaning/sterilisng training. I have worked on my own for too many years to change. I've tried it and didn't like it - old dog, new tricks and all that!

We want to say a big thank you to all of you for kindly wearing your masks when you attend. We have many vulnerable clients and for some this is the only place they have been since the initial lockdown started. Ensuring they feel relaxed and safe is important to us. We really apppreciated how kind and helpful you have all been about this.

Finally, we are continuing to work with the door locked and ‘ring the bell for entry’ system. Any of you who remember our entrance at the side many years ago will know that this is how we operated back then also. Many of our admin team have days in which they work from home answering calls and dealing with emails etc. Whilst this does mean the phones are well staffed it does make it very busy for the person physically in the building to deal with checking everyone in and out following appointments. Where possible if you do want to make appointments or discuss treatment options it would be a great help if you called or emailed. If the phone is not answered it means the team are tied up with other clients but if you leave a voicemail with your name and number they will call back as soon as they’re free. Thank you in advance for your help with this.

Here’s hoping for a sunny end to August and an Indian summer for September.

Keep well and safe.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team

Gentle Dental Day Trip

Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Two weeks ago we found ourselves out and about on a little road trip.Rob, Niamh, Jodie, Anu and myself (Lucy) decided we quite fancied a trip the dentistry show which was being held at London Olympia. It was the first time the show has been held since before COVID, so we saw it as a good opportunity to get out and find out about all the new and exciting things dentistry may have to offer.We started the day early by piling into Rob and Niamh’s car and setting off on our mini adventure. It was not long before we decided it was coffee break time. So, a quick stop at Fleet services to fill up on coffee and hot chocolate and we were back on the road.

We arrived at Olympia (after much deliberation about which was the best way to go) and I have to say we were really impressed with the COVID measures they had in place to protect us. We had to show our COVID passport/proof of double vaccination or no entry, and there were lots of hand gel stations all around the exhibition.It wasn’t long before we were filling our bags with as many freebies as we could lay our hands on. We all had to promise Niamh that none of it (tatt as she callled it) would end up back at the practice. The competition was to see who could charm their way to the most freebies. I won with Rob a close second. So after being handed many, many, pens, keyrings, toothpaste samples and whitening strips it was time to get down to serious business.

Rob and I sniffed out the gin bar and made ourselves known! Jodie, Rob and I had a delicious G&T (it was past 12pm by this point I should add) whilst learning about some new and exciting products that were coming onto the market. We had lost Niamh by this stage, she was out on the hunt for new kit to put into our brand-new treatment room. She wanted to buy an airflow machine, which I am sure you have all experienced, so when our new Dental Therapist starts with us (more about what one of those is to follow next time) the experience will be the same no matter who you see. She had success and the new machine was ordered!

Can you believe it we then stumbled across the prosecco bar! Oh this was a lovely place to be, not only for the prosecco, but because we bumped into old colleagues and friends and had a chat. Funny how so many people turned up at that spot!! I managed to catch up with some of the team I went to Africa with on my dental volunteer project a few years ago, which was just amazing. I spent the next 20 minutes telling Rob, Anu and Jodie (Niamh was still on her shopping mission at this point) that is something we should all do as a team. I think I have almost convinced them! Hmmm I've noticed the common denominator in the drinks photo is me!!

We carried on wandering around the stands looking at information and teaching Anu (our lovely new nurse) what things were and what they are used for. Before we knew it, it was 2pm and we hadn’t even thought about food - the gin and prosecco helped with that! So we wrapped things up at the show and all headed to a lovely pub for a spot of lunch. Weighed down with bags full of samples and information we made our way back to the car where it was not long before we all, except Niamh, who was driving, were sound asleep. It’s been a while since we have been able to do anything like that and we forgot how exhausting it would be.The day was a huge success and we all took a lot from it. We learned new things; saw people we haven’t seen for years; managed to get what we went for; but most importantly, we had a brilliant day out as a team!

Keep well and safe

Lucy and the Gentle Dental team

Gentle Dental new clinical team member

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I am sitting writing this on a beautiful sunny afternoon and looking out at the colours of autumn all around, desperately trying to avoid looking at the weeds and bedraggled plants I have ignored over the last few weeks.

The past month has been a strange one for me as my dad passed away at the end of September. I was fortunate as I went home to Ireland and spent his final week helping to care for him; and my mam (very Irish word I know) and me were with him when he passed away peacefully.

It has been a long time since I was at an Irish funeral and I have to say it did not disappoint. My dad was a huge presence in the local community over his life and they turned out in force to help us to celebrate his life. In a strange way it was a very joyful and uplifting experience.

It has been a whirlwind since then at Gentle Dental. My focus was not there over the last few months but now it is time to get back on track. Our long planned new treatment room is up and running. After a long and extensive interview process, where we had a short list of candidates work alongside us in the clinic, we chose Karenn, a dental therapist, and she started working with us a few weeks ago. So far the feedback has been great, which is always a relief. Who we get to work at Gentle Dental matters to us as it is important that they fit with our ethos, the team and, most importantly, with our clients. Karenn seems to fit the brief on all of these.

We also have two trainees working with us who are training in nursing and on the reception processes and next week we welcome a qualified nurse, Rachel, for two days per week. Lots of new faces but hopefully you will find them as welcoming as the team members who are familiar to you.

Karenn has written a little bit about herself which is below and in the next blog we will introduce the other new team members to you. I hesitate to write about new team members as I have developed a superstitious thought that it heralds their departure so I’m waiting until they have passed their probationary period before I introduce them. Here’s hoping!

If you don’t normally get our newsletters but are enjoying reading the update on what’s happening at Gentle Dental, please let us know you would like to get them in future and we will update your preferences for contact. The newsletters are never marketing based, they just let you know what’s happening in our world and alert you to any changes within the practice.

Hello Everyone I hope everyone is enjoying the gorgeous fall season. I absolutely love the colours on the trees, yellow, orange, maroon and brown, my absolute favourites! Maybe it is because of my skin tone, HA!

My name is Karenn, the new member of the fabulous Gentle Dental gang! I am absolutely loving it in here! Everyone is so kind and lovely, I think I have found my happy place!

Just a little about me, I am from Mexico, don’t like too spicy food (I know I am Mexican), I’m an adrenaline junkie and I love parties too, of course HA!

Apart from that, I also love dentistry! So muchso that I am a finalist for 'The Best Therapist in the South!' Can you believe that! I am Ecstatic!

So, let me tell you a little more about that, can I?

The Oral health Awards (OHA) and the Private Dentistry Awards (PDA) are celebrated every year, so this year I am a finalist for Best Therapist in the South (By OHA) and a Finalist for Best Care for Nervous Patients (by both the OHW & the PDA). The ceremonies are in London on the 5th & 12th of November, quite expensive though, so not sure I will be attending both, but I will keep you posted!

There you go, that is me in a nutshell. And I can promise you, I will do my absolute best for you to look after you at Gentle Dental!

With Love Karenn Xxx

We are keeping our fingers crossed for Karenn in the awards.

Keep well and safe.

Niamh, Rob and (in Karenn’s words) the fabulous Gentle Dental gang

Christmas present ideas

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick note from us this time. We had a visit yesterday from our fabulous Oral b rep, Zoe. As well as loading us up with toothpaste samples, and trial heads so we can demonstrate tooth brushing in your mouth she supplied us with vouchers for you, our lovely clients.

If you are thinking about an electric brush as a present for someone or, indeed, just treating yourself to a new one, now is the time to buy. These vouchers get you a great price and a choice of free gifts - a 6-month supply of brush heads or a 6-month oral care kit.

The brushes on offer are the Oral B Pro 3 (replaces the 200/2500) or the new iO

The Pro 3 is a basic brush, no bells or whistles, simply one button to turn it on, the same button gives a slower speed and another push on this button turns it off. No app, no gimmicks, a simple but perfect clean.

The Oral b iO is a departure for them. After what must be 40 years they have changed how the toothbrush head works. Rather than a metal shank it now operates on magnets. This means the brush is quieter and, more importantly, smoother. For those of you who hated the vibration and the slightly aggressive feel to the brush this is a dream.

Karenn, Rob and I were fortunate to be given an iO when Oral B was launching them and all of us love them. My stumbling block with recommending one to clients has been the cost. However these offers are quite good and may make owning one more realistic.

However I am not saying the Pro 3 will not do a good job. It really just comes down to whether a smoother operating system and an app are what works for you.

For the website to visit to peruse these offers click here. The really important bit is that you need a unique code to get the free gift. We have cards with these individual codes on them so either call in to collect one or email or text and we will send the code to you. The phones are very busy these days but if that’s the easiest way for you to contact us give a call.

I feel it is important to let you know there is no kick back for us from this. It is simply something Oral B have offered for practices and loyal clients. Also you will need to peruse the choices firstly and know which brush you want to get, Pro3 or iO, as they have different unique codes.

Hmmmm.! This has turned into a rather long ‘quick note’.

Happy shopping

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team

Covid19 Pre-appointment Questionnaire

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 Pre appointment questionnaire

Please note health care settings work under guidance issued by NHS England and Public Health England. This guidance currently still requires a facemask to be worn in all health care settings when attending appointments. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

If you answer yes to any of these questions, please call us prior to your appointment so we can discuss the options with you.

Today or in the last 10 days have you…

Have you had a high temperature?

Have you had any of the following symptoms: a new, continuous cough or a loss of, or change to, your sense of smell or taste?

Have you tested positive for COVID-19?

About your household and contacts

Has anyone in your household or your close contacts had/ currently have: a high temperature, a new continuous cough or a loss of/change to their sense of taste or smell?

Has anyone in your household or your close contacts tested positive for COVID-19?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please call us prior to your appointment so we can discuss the options with you.

Spring 2022

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

What a shock to the system the weather has been this last week. We hadn’t quite gotten to the ‘flip flops and shorts’ stage but were definitely channelling that ‘summer’ feeling with the beautiful sunshine and warmth of the last few weeks. At least it has been mainly sunny and by swapping a t-shirt for coat and scarf we could still get out and enjoy the beautiful Spring flowers. Here’s hoping this cold spell is just a blip before a fabulous summer.

Apologies for the long silence since our last newsletter. However, what it means is that we have lots of news for you - all in one hit.

Staff news

As you may be aware, the practice currently is very busy and we mainly have you to thank for this. You have been recommending us far and wide to friends, work colleagues and family members, a huge compliment to us. Of course, this does have the knock-on effect of making the practice busier but we have addressed that with the new treatment room and the fabulous Karenn.

Karenn is a dental therapist which I know is a role within dentistry of which most people are unaware. This role has been around for a long time but in a different guise. Dental Therapy did exist when I trained as a hygienist but only allowed you to work in the community dental sector and only with children. However, the role changed in the late 90’s and now, as well as training for a hygienist role, therapists train to do dental examinations, disease diagnosis, x-ray prescription and fillings.

Having been around for a short while, (I find it hard to believe I qualified 32 years ago), I can recognise decay, missing fillings etc. Technically I have to have a dentist actually ‘diagnose’ the situation and plan the treatment. To take x-rays a dentist has to say they are justified and I cannot carry out a dental examination. A therapist however, can do all of these things.

Karenn is currently with us two days per week and is providing hygienist appointment for one day and carrying out simple fillings for the other, thus allowing space in Robs diary for more complex treatment. The exciting news is that from May she is joining us four days per week and as you can see for the picture below she is well placed to fit in with the gentle approach we offer.

We are already seeing the impact of the extra clinician on the diaries with a shorter wait for appointments with Rob when you need more complex treatment and we are once again managing to see you for your hygienist visit in a timely manner.

With the extra clinical hours and the likelihood of a lockdown almost nil, we are once again prebooking your next hygienist/dental health review appointment when you leave. Obviously if you prefer not to book in advance, we can accommodate this also.

The other bit of staff news to impart is that Victoria has decided not to return to work after her maternity leave. WIth two young daughters to care for she has decided to be a full time mum.

Charity

You may or may not be aware but Gentle Dental does a charity donation of £10 for every personal recommendation we receive from a client. We generally chose a local charity and over the last few years have supported Salisbury Hospice, Salisbury Trust for the Homeless and in 2021 our chosen charity was The Trussel Trust.

The donation is based on new clients who say they were referred by one of you when asked how they heard about us and the number of clients who searched for a dentist on google (or another search engine) and said that the reason they chose Gentle Dental over another practice was the client reviews on our website. The total donation to Trussel Trust for 2021 is £1830. Thank you so much for the huge number of recommendations.

Our chosen charity for 2022 is ‘Hope for Tomorrow’.

Hope for Tomorrow provides convenient cancer care by enabling cancer treatment to be delivered in the right way, at the right time, in close proximity to patients, via a Mobile Cancer Care Units. Our local Unit is called ‘Kayleigh’ and it is partnered with Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust delivering 2,069 cancer care treatments since April 2021 to local cancer patients. ‘Kayleigh’ travels to three local car parks in Salisbury, Dorset and Westbury to deliver cancer care treatment, and without this Unit patients may have to travel considerable distances to receive treatment elsewhere.

As it will be 2023 before we make the donation to Hope for Tomorrow, we have decided to do something now to support Hope for Tomorrow. Rob and I have signed up to do the Jurassic Coast Walk, 100k in 24 hours on May 14th for Salisbury Hospice. I know, you are now thinking how is that going to support Hope for tomorrow?

The JCC has several registration options so we have chosen the one where we pay the fundraising ‘target’ amount personally. That way if anyone does feel they would like to sponsor us for the walk perhaps they will consider making a donation to Hope for Tomorrow. This way we can support two local charities in one hit - and believe me 100k in 24 hours along the Jurrasic coast is going to feel like a hit! We are not spring chickens any more. You can all relax thought, we have booked the Monday off to allow for recover time so none of you need to worry about being on the receiving end of treatment from an exhausted dentist or hygienist. Cheekily this is the link to the ‘just giving’ page.

We will let you know how we fare with the walk in the newsletter and I hope we are smiling like this at the end of our walk in May!!

Thank you for all the support and we look forward to seeing you in the future.

Kind Regards

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

So who is little Miss Fussy?

Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to the (occasional) beautiful Summer weather. Here's hoping it soon lasts longer than a few days. As you can see from the photo Karenn is so estatic with good weather that she has decided to go with the 'siesta ' custom from home (Mexico), including the large hat to keep off the sun.

So that was the 'Hi, and now the apology.

In our last blog we spoke about how Rob and I were doing the Jurassic Coast Challenge in May and the apology is because we have had to postpone the walk until September. In the last month or so we have had a 'series of unfortunate events', as it were.

Firstly, in mid March Rob mistimed a step on the work stairs and sprained his ankle. We had some time off just before Easter and he recovered in time for us to do the Offa’s Dyke walk and the Wye Valley Way, both starting in Monmouth and finishing in Chepstow, approximately 30km each day.

Buoyed by the fact that we had survived that fairly easily, we were lined up to do 40km per day for 2 days over the Easter weekend. However, Rob returned from Wales with a nasty cold which confined him to bed and he passed it on to me a week later. So generous!! I was off work for an entire 10 days and just as I recovered, Rob went down with Covid. Thankfully he decided to keep that one to himself!

The 100km in 24 hours was due to happen last weekend and as it is 5 weeks since we did anything much in the way of exercise we decided to be entirely sensible and postpone. We have now transferred to the South Coast Challenge on September 3rd/4th. We will start at Eastbourne, walk up Beachy Head, then the Seven Sisters and along the South Down Way to Brighton, the halfway point. It is then along Devils Dyke and finally we will face the many ups and downs to Arundel.

We have had numerous donations to date and thank you all for your support for this fantastic charity 'Hope for Tomorrow' which provides a mobile cancer care unit for Wiltshire. All donations made to date for Hope for Tomorrow will still go to them. And the donation Rob and I made to the hospice will go to them also.

The upside of the delay is it gives us plenty of time to get the miles in over the summer...and lots more time to promote the charity. Click here if you woudl like to support this fantastic charity.

Last weekend we were feeling lots better so took a bus to town, did our market shop and walked home. And look who we spotted at the hospital. It was really nice to see in the flesh, as it were, what we are raising money for.

To date we have not written much in the blog about teeth and health. Before you decide to siesta like Karenn, I promise this is not a nag, simply information. I thought I might take the opportunity this time to mention, (believe it or not) gum health!!

You may have heard about the work done at Salisbury District Hospital during the pandemic to do with mouthwash and Covid. I have had questions from many of you on this so I thought I would put a little something in the newsletter to explain a bit more on this.

The link between poor gum health and other conditions in the body is something that has been known about for many years. Gum disease has been linked to problems with feet and eyes in those who suffer with diabetes. It has been shown to exacerbate the condition in people with heart disease. And links with bowel cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and numerous other illnesses are still being investigated. The reason for this is that when gums are inflamed there is ulceration under the gum and this provides a pathway for oral bacteria to enter the blood stream.

I should point out that the following is my understanding from what I have read, so if you were involved with the trial and the minutiae are different, I apologise in advance.

It would seem that the theory was, the virus could leak from the saliva into the blood vessels of the mouth, particularly in those who have gum disease/bleeding gums.

The lung problems caused by Covid -19 is in the blood vessels of the lungs and not in the airways, as happens with pneumonia. When the virus is in the blood vessels it can then be passed to the lungs via the bloodstream and directly to the areas where it may cause the most damage.

The hypothesis was that if the amount of the virus in the mouth and saliva could be lowered, and gum health was improved, both achieveable with oral hygiene and the use of various aids, the risk of the virus passing to the lungs would be lower. In theory this would then reduce the number of Covid positive patients who became seriously ill. The team had noted a larger proportion of the patients who got seriously ill had gum disease.

A quick synopsis is that if you have gum disease and have Covid, the use of a mouthwash containing cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) may reduce your risk of serious illness. Some of the social media posts I have seen seem to imply that the daily use of these mouthwashes will prevent Covid and this is simply not the case.

I know the next question will be which mouthwashes? And the answer is many of them including Dentyl, Listerine and Colgate Plax. The research was done with 0.7% CPC so if you are buying one if you are covid positive look at how much CPC they contain.

I hope this gives a bit of clarity and sincerely hope I haven’t misinterpreted this.

On the upside it may make you all feel better about how much I nag you. One client recently described me as Little Miss Fussy and I think Karenn is my twin!

I will keep you posted on our training program for the September walk and hope you continue to enjoy good health and the lovely weather.

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team

Gentle Dental - a day in the life of the reception team

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A day in the life of the Gentle Dental Reception team

A lot of people will assume that receptionists sit all day, filing their nails, flicking through the latest glossy or chatting to their co-workers……….. That’s what I thought to when I accepted the job at Gentle Dental 28 months ago! Coming from a background of senior management and compliance I thought, yes, I’ll have some of that! How wrong I was to make those assumptions.

So, I am sure you have all met all of us over your visits at Gentle Dental. I’m Lucy, we also have in the team Jodie, Taryn and of course Patricia.

As you can see some of us are professional, some like a bevy (never me!) and some are more camera shy than others.

I thought it would be nice to give you a little insight in to what we do as ‘receptionists’ at Gentle Dental, and I can assure you, and you will see for yourselves, we certainly do not have time to file our nails!

We generally arrive at work around 7.15am, bright eyed and bushy tailed of course. I mean who isn’t at that time in the morning!

One of our first jobs is to check the emails and answer machine to make sure no one needs to talk to us urgently. Rob then brings us all a nice cup of tea (normally the only hot one we get a chance to have in the day) and we have a meeting together with the whole team. This is where we discuss everyone who is in that day and anything we need to share or know about the appointments coming up, if you have had an 8am appointment you would have been greeted by all of us smiling at you from behind the desk (and behind our masks)

It is from there that generally our feet don’t touch the ground again until 5.15pm. In between managing phone calls and checking you lovely lot in and seeing you out, we will be calling people to follow up on a whole series of things. This includes speaking to consultants to arrange appointments, making sure Rob, Niamh and Karenn are working as hard as they can (I mean we can’t have them filing their nails if we can’t!), preparing client notes for upcoming appointments and generally ensuring all of the things that keep the practice running smoothly from an administration point of view, as well as those that ensure we give a first-class customer experience to all of our clients, are up together.

Now that there are three clinics running every day, we are on the go even more than before. We had to make a choice of either growing another set of hands each, or taking someone new on to join the team. Fortunately, we opted for the latter, and Laura has survived her first few weeks with us and is settling in well.

Myself and Jodie were having a giggle the other day because, she had been on holiday and I covered her hours, then I went on holiday and she covered mine. We both felt we needed another holiday to recover from covering each other. Oh well, they do say there is no rest for the wicked!

We are like a little family here at Gentle Dental and support each other every step of the way, even though sometimes we don’t even find a moment to have a chat. We do however have a very lively WhatsApp group, which is full of jokes and banter most of the time. Poor Rob, the only male amongst 9 women! Here’s a few pics of our recent night out. We love a good social here at Gentle Dental.

Enjoy your weekend.

Lucy and the Gentle Dental team

Didn't we have a lovely time!!

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to our Autumn missive.

It feels like a long time ago since I wrote in June about enjoying occasional summer weather - my how that changed and what a summer it was. Hopefully, all the gardens have now recovered. Mine is still blooming in spots with the mild Autumn.

So, what has been happening at Gentle Dental over the summer?

As you know Lucy departed for pastures new in July and seems to be thriving. She is enjoying being around a lot more for her son Rowan thought missing the team and her banter with all you lovely clients. You are likely also aware that Victoria decided not to return after her maternity leave. She is running her own cake baking business (as is Lucy) and is looking after her 2 little girls.

While Victoria was on maternity leave I have been managing the team and the 'behind the scenes' element of the practice, keeping it ticking over is a more accurate description. When she decided not to return I was rather stumped. Thankfully Jodie, who has been with us for 3 years, has stepped into the breach and is taking on all of these duties.

We have a new reception team member, Laura. She joined us in June and is learning the ropes well. Having left school the year before she was at a bit of a loss to know what to do but has taken to this like a duck to water.

Pre Lockdowns we were recruiting for staff and post we just managed as trying to train new team members while learning new systems ourselves seems too much of a mountain to climb. Over the last 18 months we worked at building the team again and now all of the newer team members have completed a year with us. I'm not sure how well you have gotten to know them as a lot of the time we were all completely covered in PPE. I've got so many clients who comment that they never knew till now what I looked like.

The newer team members are Anu - trainee nurse who is sitting her exams in April 2023, Taryn - reception, Rachael - qualified nurse and Karenn - dental therapist. And of course we still have Kat - long term locum. We keep trying to talk her into taking on a permanent position with us but she likes doing her won thing too much. The team has really gelled which is always so nice for us all and I think it creates a nicer environment for you when you visit us.

Rob and I of course are still here. It looks a bit like we will go down with the ship, as it were!

We seem to have gone from famine to feast when it comes to socialising having had 2 days out in a very short space of time.

We had a ‘staff day out’ in September when we went to Salisbury races. And I can definitely say ‘fun was had by all’. Several of the team had never been to the races (and in my case only once before). I’m sure we kept many people amused as we tried to figure out how to bet, how much to bet and even where to place a bet. Howe green were we! One chap obviously recognised us as novices (I wonder how!), took pity on us and showed us the ‘magic page’ at the beginning of the program which gave us a clue about who was expected to win the race, and who the likely surprise might be. Thus armed, and on his advice using the TOTE (£2 bet), we got into the spirit. Several of the girls walked away ‘up’ on money so were very pleased with themselves.

In early October we went to the Dental Showcase, an industry event where anyone who is anyone in the supply world lays out their wares. This was held in Excel London and looking at the journey we decided to drive part way and train the rest. Thus, we drove to Weybridge and took the train from there. This caused much excitement as several of the team had never been on the DLR and none of us had been on the Elisabeth line. So even the journey was fun and we had a great day at the showcase.

You may remember that we had decided to embark on a walking challenge, 100k in 24 hours. This was meant to happen in May and was postponed due to illness and Rob having covid. We rearranged for early September but pulled out due to the heat. My Irish skin and body does not cope well with heat so walking 10 hours each day over a weekend to train just didn’t happen. 23-25 degrees is a heat wave in Ireland so the temperatures here meant I did little at the weekends other than sit in the shade.

We have rebooked for May 23 and will be undertaking the original challenge of the Jurassic coast. More news on training etc will follow in the Spring but I’m pretty confident that temperatures in the Spring should allow for the training. Training starts in earnest in February and we will keep you posted on training. Fingers crossed we actually make it this time!

We are doing the walk to raise funds for our chosen charity for this year which is Hope for Tomorrow. The charity raises funds for mobile cancer treatment units which means patients don;t need to travel daily to Southampton and can be closer to home. Our local one is called Kayleigh which is currently out of service being refurbished so hopefully the funds raised will assist with that.

I hope to get back to doing more regular blogs now Jodie is taking over some of the duties so I hope to be in touch with more updates in the next month or so

Keep well and safe

Niamh. Rob and the Gentle Dental team

Ready for a challenge!

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

100KM (60 miles) in 24 hours. Are we up to the challenge!!

The current, occasional glimpse of Spring with crocus and daffodils, as well as longer hours of daylight is so heart-warming. It almost feels like we can put winter behind and look forward to a (hopefully) balmy summer - thought snow last week was a bit of a shocker!

I may have mentioned over the years that I am an avid Radio 4 listener, yes even the Archers! I am hoping lots of you also listen and have caught up with some of the Michael Mosley ‘Just One Thing’ shows.

If not, I can highly recommend them but especially the one entitled ‘Clean your teeth’.

We all know that cleaning our teeth can prevent tooth decay and gum disease, but many people do not realise that the benefits of a healthy mouth extend to your entire body and its systems.

Healthy teeth and gums can help your heart and your brain, reducing the risk of diseases like dementia and diabetes. When gums are inflamed, bacteria from the mouth can enter the blood stream and get carried around the body which can cause problems in the organs of the body. There are proven links between inflammation in the mouth and an increased risk of complications with diabetes and heart disease as well as links with dementia, bowel cancer and an increased risk of needing intensive care when ill with covid.

This is why Karenn and I continually encourage (please note - not NAG!) you about flossing, interdental brushes etc. We really are looking after your general health and not just your teeth and gums. This episode of Just One Thing, along with all his others are available on the BBC sounds app if you do fancy a listen.

We have had a busy couple of months at Gentle Dental with birthdays. There are 9 team members and 7 of us have birthdays between October and January. I never want to see another birthday cake! We also did our Basic Life support training, and had a training day with Practice Plan.

The practice plan day was all about communication and thoughts on how to create a smooth journey through the practice for clients. As a group we picked up on several things that we felt we could do better and have tweaked systems at work to accommodate these.

As always, we are open to feedback and suggestions so, please feel free to contact us in whatever manner you prefer with your thoughts.

Karenn’s birthday happened to fall on the practice plan training day. Much to her embarrassment we ambushed her with a cake in the lunchbreak (and Rob snuck in tequila shots!) in front of all the course attendees. She did manage to bury her embarrassment long enough to eat cake though - and sink a shot (see the picture above).

At the beginning of this blog I expounded the joys of the stretch in the daylight hours. However, the longer days and better weather meant we could no longer put off starting our training for what we are calling ‘The Walk’!

You may remember Rob and I committed to ‘100km (60 miles) in 24 hours’ last May and had to cancel as we both got ill. The rejigged September date was cancelled due to the heat and my inability to spend that length of time in the direct sun. (Irish skin and sun are not meant for each other!)

Training started in early February with 20km on the first Saturday and 10km on the Sunday. The stairs at work on Monday morning felt really steep! Several weeks later the Monday morning stairs don't seem so bad anymore. And as they insist on bouncing back home for weekends, we have even dragged our young adults into joining us in the training. No complaints from them, so far!

The ‘Jurassic Coast Ultra Challenge’ was organised last year in aid of Salisbury Hospice Charity and there was a minimum fundraising amount. Rob and I paid this amount personally and we are doing the walk in aid of Hope for Tomorrow – a charity that funds mobile cancer care units. Wiltshire’s unit is called Kayleigh, and she travels to several areas around the county so those undergoing cancer treatment do not have to travel to Southampton daily for their care.

Our target for fundraising is £2,000 and thanks to your generosity we are already almost 25% there.

One client added quotes to his donation -

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks" - John Muir.

"When you're going through hell, keep going" - Churchill.

I am sincerely hoping I do not need to call on the second one and can focus on Churchill for the duration.

We will let you know how we do and if you do fancy following our training journey and of course the actual walk, we will be posting on Instagram and Facebook. We might need encouragement so if social media is your thing follow us and have a laugh at our expense. I will also post bits and pieces to the Just Giving page for non-social media folk and of course will let you know in the newsletter how we did on the day.

If you would like to make a donation to Hope For Tomorrow you can do this through our Just Giving page or there is a collection box at the desk when you attend the practice if you prefer.

Part of my role in running Gentle Dental is to ensure that neither Rob nor Karenn get an opportunity to sit and twiddle their thumbs. The nature of the way we work means we complete the necessary work for clients when they first start with us, assist them in getting their dental health to a good standard and after that it is maintenance. Therefore in order to make sure I keep them busy, we are actively seeking new clients.

Feel free, if it is appropriate, to recommend us to friends, family work colleagues etc. Make sure you ask them to mention your name when they register as we make a £10 donation to charity for every new client who attends following personal recommendation.

Last year we supported Hope for Tomorrow and have decided to continue with them this year as we are supporting them with ‘The Walk’. However, we have worked out the donation based on personal recommendation between February 1st 2022 and 31st January 2023.

100 clients registered with us on a personal recommendation during that period so that is an extra £1000 donation from Gentle Dental to for Hope for Tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued support and confidence in us.

Finally just to let you now you can now communicate with us through Whatsapp, if this is your preferred method of communication. Currently you can access this through the Whatsapp button on our Facebook and Instagram. We are also very happy for you to message us through Facebook messenger and Instagram messaging. The reception team monitor these through the day.

We look forward to seeing you all in the coming months.

Kind regards

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle dental team

The Luck of the Irish

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The luck of the Irish in this case is that, despite all of the rain we have had over the last few months, we have only been rained on once during our walking training – and that only happened 500m from our front door at the end of the walk. Someone has been watching over us for sure. I, like so many, hate walking in the rain!!!

It is amazing how many of you we have run into over the past few months whilst out walking. We have been exploring the Salisbury surrounds in every direction in a quest to get the miles in so we have been visiting different areas. The beauty of living somewhere like Salisbury is that, in the main, we have only had to walk from our front door or take a short bus ride and away we go. So many footpaths and beautiful areas to explore.

Your support has been fantastic both in the good wishes and your interest in asking us about it and how we are doing; and with donations. Our target is 2K, which to be fair was a number I plucked from the air with no real belief we would achieve it. We currently sit at almost £1300 which includes the cash many of you have given at the desk. Amazing!

Regarding the interest in how we are doing and indeed the queries on how on earth we are going to do 100km in 24 hours – I thought I would do an update for anyone we haven’t run into or who hasn’t been in to us but would like to know.

We averge between 5.5 - 6km per hour when we are walking and have managed to keep that pace up for our longer walks. The strategy we are planning is to keep this pace going for the first 50km which would mean we get this done in the first 10 hours, leaving us plenty of time to go slower over the night time walk. Who knows whether it will work out like that or not.

The days walk that seems to make most people ponder is the ‘Amesbury to Odstock … via Downton’ day. This was about 40 km. So, bus to Amesbury, back to Salisbury along the river Avon, coffee in the market (got to be done!), Britford, Odstock and Great Yews, Charlton All Saints, Downton (tea at the Borough Café), Charlton All Saints, Nunton and finally Odstock from where we got a lift.

Our longest day to date was 48km which meant we were out and about for 9.5 hours, walking for just over 8 hours of that. (The strava picture says 47km, I forgot to restart it after one break). That felt long! Gulp, how will 24 hours feel!!

We walked a circuitous route into town from Coombe Bissett and headed for the Clarendon way. Deviated from it around Farley, Pitton, the Winterslows, back along the Clarendon way and out to Coombe Bissett. Never has the Fox and Goose in Coombe Bissett been such a welcome sight. We virtually crawled into the sunny garden and didn’t move for an hour. Mind you moving after an hour was tough!

As I write this, I am gearing up to leave work at 12 and head out for approximately 40 km on the Avon Valley path. When we have had enough or it is convenient, we will jump on the X3 back to Salisbury. I think a visit to 'Sips' for a beer might have been earned by then!! Tomorrow will be a 25-30km and then it is the final countdown to the big day.

Training for the last two weeks is lighter so this is the last big push. Much as we enjoy walking, we are now looking forward to just getting it done. We feel we may just hang up our walking poles for the rest of the summer and stick to the bikes for outings and exercise.

Cheekily I have added in the link to the Gentle Dental Just Giving page. Now the finishing line 'target wise' is in sight we are beginning to believe we can hit it.

Many thanks for your continued support for such a good charity, Hope for Tomorrow. The mobile cancer treatment van makes life so much easier for families when a loved one is undergoing cancer treatment. Avoiding a long haul to Southampton every day for weeks makes such a difference.

We will let you know how we manage on the day and the final amount raised of course.

Thanks again for the support and good wishes.

Regards

Niamh and Rob

Only 1 sleep to go

Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We just want to say thank you for the texts, emails and verbal ‘Good Luck’ wishes. So many of you have contacted us this week it has been quite touching.

And you did it! Our fundraising target was £2,000 and currently it sits at £2,121. You are amazing! If you want to keep track of the final total click here.

We’ve made our list, checked it twice and are gonna find out….if we have forgotten anything.....once it is too late. The picture above tells a story. The Compeed supply is ready. I wish I had bought shares in this company.

And as you can see, Hope for Tomorrow have supplied us with t-shirts for the day, 'beautifully' modelled by Rob. Perhaps he missed his calling in life?!

Just in case you are interested, it seems you can check in to see where on the route we are and how we are doing. So, if you want to suss out if we made the first 50 KM in 10 hours or indeed made it to the finish, log in here. Search for my 'bib number' - 2183 - on the top left.

It has been really nice to not do so much walking for the last 10 days and finally give my garden some much needed attention. Our final ‘big push’ was 2 weeks ago where we did approximately 75km over Friday and Saturday. The legs were ok(ish) the next day so here’s hoping this Sunday will be the same.

Thank you again for all the support and good wishes. I will let you all know how we did. Or you may already have sussed it if you check in to the live link.

Have a good weekend.

Regards

Niamh & Rob

100km - We made it !

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Unbelievably we made it! We finished the 100km walk.

Strategy went out the window due to the weather and feet, 11.5 hrs to the 50km mark! We had beautiful sunshine, which is definitely preferable to rain. However, in Ireland, 23 degrees is a heatwave of similar proportions to the heat here last summer, so for me last Saturday was HOT! I think Stoke on Trent lads feel the same was about the heat. Therefore, recover breaks were definitely longer than planned. Our 20 minute afternoon stop extended and extended and became 50 minutes.

The compede worked well – but not well enough! By 25km, a poorly placed compede meant I had developed a rub on my heel. However a better placed piece meant this was manageable. Rob on the other hand, by 60km had develop a lot of blisters so walking fast was not an option. especiallly for the last 20km. However, it is a beautiful area with stunning views so this kept us going. Even knowing the climb that was approaching after Durdle Door, didn't prevent us enjoying a few moment just gazing at it...... and all the folks lying on the beach..... eating ice cream..... swimming. When we didn't give up in that moment and join them, we were definitely going to make the finish!

We did still manage to complete the course in 25 hours and 3 minutes. Actual walking time according to Strava was just under 19 hour and 40 minutes. Not a bad effort I reckon.

The event was amazing and we were really impressed with the organisation and the helpfulness of the staff. Every rest stop had plenty of food and drinks, welfare staff for sore feet or difficult headspace and the friendliest most encouraging bunch of volunteers imaginable.

Once it hit 5pm, volunteer walked from the 42km stop and mopped up any stragglers. They then walked with these folk to get them to the next stage. Overnight there was a similar system. We went out in groups every 10 minutes and the volunteer walked at the back with the slowest member until daylight. The support was impressive.

I checked on Instagram on Monday morning and the last person walked through the finish line at approximately 10pm on Sunday evening. She started at 7am on Saturday! Commitment I’m not sure I would have had.

Apart from blisters our main concern was how would we manage mentally. Even the briefing before we set off for the night section talked about this. Luckily for us the mental challenge never arrived. We just focused on watching for our luminous pink arrows and glowsticks and suddently we were there. On reflection, we feel we went into this with so much support from you guys with encouraging comments and sponsorship, that the possibility of dropping out never crossed our minds.

Currently the fundraising on Just Giving sits at £2570 and although any amount would have made it worthwhile, this makes it soooooo worthwhile. On behalf of the charity Hope for Tomorrow, thank you. I know we have more that this as numerous clients have popped cash in the box at the desk this week.

I will now stop haranguing you with our ‘walk’ and blog about other things moving forward. And if I ever talk about a mad idea like this again, someone please stop me!!!

Enjoy the weather.

Regards

Niamh & Rob

Oral B Electric Toothbrush Special Offer

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What a glorious summer it has been so far. The hottest June since the 40’s I believe.

That being said, I am enjoying the current slightly cooler weather but hoping the sunshine and warmth comes back. I have really enjoyed being able to sit out in the evenings with just a light cardigan, if even.

Our Jurassic coast 'adventure' feels like a lifetime ago and although it was hot on the day, I am so glad it wasn’t like June. Needless to say, with my 'frequently mentioned lack of ability to cope with too much heat', not a lot of walking has been happening over the past month or so. A few forays on the bike. But having put social life more of less on hold for the 3 months prior to the walk, we decided to make up for lost time.

To mention just a few of many outings - we had the priviledge of another invitation to Founders Day at the Chelsea Hospital, courtesy of Sergeant Harry Wright. It is an amazing day where all of the retired service men and women wear their 'reds' and parade proudly- in the words from the song, Waltzing Matilda, 'reliving their days of past glory'. I am always amazed as they stand for inspection for a good hour, in their long red coats....with hats....in the heat. This year the insepction was made by the King and Queen of Belgium. There are trumpeters, marching bands and so many medals on display.

All the pomp and ceremony is followed by a picnic, bands and I have no idea how the tradition started, but there are always belly dancers. No heartattacks....yet.

We also went on a jolly to Portugal, courtesy of Practice Plan, at a 5 star resort. Suffice it to say there was great food, music, dancing and not a lot of sleep! As you can see, Rob was quite happy to 'schmoose' with the Practice Plan ladies.

Donations for Hope for Tomorrow are still dribbling in as clients attend for appointments and pop cash in the collection box and Just Giving notifications are still appearing in my inbox. Therefore, we have left the page open for now for anyone who wants it. And of course, the collection box will be available at the desk. The current total stands at an amazing £3,057. What a wonderful bunch you are. The support has been greatly appreciated.

Practice Members Payment Plan

I want to take an opportunity to remind you of the additional benefits that are part of the Gentle Dental practice membership plan. We have had several instances over the past few months where clients have not realised there was cover available.

Rather than bore you all (and myself) to tears I will cover two of the main benefits this blog and the rest the next time.

Worldwide Dental Emergency Assistance Scheme

The first one to speak about it the emergency cover and the fact that this is worldwide. So when you are away from home, in the UK or abroad, if you have a problem you can see a dentist.

Emergency temporary dental treatment

It was interesting to sit and read the leaflet as I was writing this as I learnt a lot. I did not realise that the ideal scenario is that you call the worldwide dental emergency assistance scheme (WDEAS) before you arrange your emergency appointment to get authorisation. The number to call varies according to the day, time of day, and where in the world you are. The phones will be answered 24 hours per day.

We do have business size cards at the practice with the details so if you want one for your wallet please ask when you are in.

When you visit with us at Gentle Dental for an emergency appointment, as a member of the practice you do not pay a fee. However, for out of hours (evenings or weekends) there is a fee which is mainly covered by the WDEAS scheme with a small excess payable by the client. If you attend Gentle Dental in these circumstances, the excess is payable and we make a claim for the remainder.

When you attend elsewhere for an emergency appointment, the full payment is usually charged to you and you need to make a claim to WDEAS. Please make sure you get a receipt which you can then submit for payment to you, minus the excess.

Trauma cover

You can also make a claim if teeth are damaged due to an external trauma. For instance, breakage from biting on an olive stone will not be covered but trauma from a fall, car accident, ball in the face type injury, etc, is.

The emergency cover outlined above applies initially so you can get the pain element and temporary treatment sorted and is then backed up by this element. We generally submit a treatment plan and wait until we get approval before doing the work. If the broken teeth are visible, we can complete the work but you need to be aware the approval may not be given. However to date, and we have been with Practice Plan since 2004, every claim has been approved.

Once approval has been given you will be given a breakdown of how much you can claim back. You pay Gentle Dental and then claim the money back.

One of the things I love about dealing with Practice Plan is that you deal with human beings who are always helpful and make everything as easy as possible. No long telephone menu to sit through and the staff are incredibly helpful.

Follow this link and you can download a booklet outlining all of this information, plus the phone numbers to call if you require assistance. Select Level A from the download options.

While reminding myself of the details of this scheme, I found that numerous dental practice websites came up on a search with this leaflet somewhere on it. For the life of me I cannot find a link on their website. However I am on the case and will let you know when the much easier option of just clicking a link on the Gentle Dental website is live. That way you will have access to the information you need in an emergency, without having to search around lots.

I will outline some detail on the other benefits in the next newsletter.

Electric Toothbrush Special Offer.

And now for some exciting news from Oral B - well I think its exciting but I am a bit fixated on clean teeth!!

67% off selected brushes in the iO range – you pay £79 - £150 (normally £240 - £450)

30% off the PRO3 – you pay £40 (normally £100)

To avail of this offer you simply need to contact us for a card with a unique code. The offer is valid until June 2024 so keep it in mind, even if you don’t need a new toothbrush right now.

For every toothbrsh bought through the practice code, Oral B will give 5% of the retail price to Dentaid – a dental charity which, sadly, is doing more work in the UK now than abroad – a sad reflection on the availability of NHS dentistry. Dentaid have mobile dental units which travel the UK providing outreach dental clinics for people who struggle to access treatment.

So if you want a new toothbrush in the next year, please give us a call for a code. Not only will you get a bargain but you will be supporting a great charity. The codes are not limited to clients registered with us so if you have friends or family members who want a new electric toothbrush, grab a code for them too.

I now have to ask myself....what is it with us and mobile treatment vans!!

I mentioned several brushes above. So what is the difference in these and how do you know which one to choose?

Pro3

Pro3 is the basic brush with one button which turns it off, press it again to slow it down and press a third time to turn it off. It does give the 30 second vibration so you can keep track of your time and does have a visible pressure sensor.

And now for the science..............

The mechanism by which the Pro3 works is by a metal shank which rotates the head, not the bristles. The head rotates 45 degrees, it also oscillates, and pulsates (the bristles push forward against the tooth). This is the technology on which the Oral B range has operated for ever.

But now there is something new.

You have no doubt seen the advertising for Oral B’s new iO toothbrush range. The mechanism by which it works (linear magnetic force) is completely different than that described briefly above. For the scientifically minded this basically means the iO directs the energy directly to the bristle tips rather than rotating the actual head.

Despite the fact that I have had an iO since 2020 (free of charge, lucky me) and absolutely love it, I have not necessarily been making a lot of noise about it with clients as it has had an eye wateringly high RRP. Therefore I, along with many hygienist colleagues, have continuously fed back that they are too expensive and it would seem that the constant whinging from dental professionals has paid off. They have now launched some at a far more affordable price…..and launched some incredible offers.

That being said the iO4 which is mentioned in the offer is currently unavailable as there are issues with the chargers. Oral B are working to resolve this and when I will keep you updated on progress as and when I know about it.

I have outlined in the table below the differences in the three models available with the offer. Hopefully it makes sense and makes it easy to know which model is for you. It took me quite a while to get my head around the differences so I don't envy anyone stood in a shop trying to figure it out.

	iO4	iO6	iO8
RRP	£240	£300	£450
No of cleaning modes	4	5	6
Daily Clean mode	yes	yes	yes
Sensitive mode	yes	yes	yes
Super sensitive mode	yes	no	yes
Intense mode	no	yes	yes
Whitening mode	yes	yes	yes
Gum Care mode	no	yes	yes
Tongue Cleaning mode	no	no	no
Interactice Display	no	black & white	colour
Mode currently in use	not visible	on handle display	on handle display
Real time Zone tracking with AI	not available	6 zones- visible on the app	6 zones - visible on the app
Brush head replacement reminder	Light on the handle	visible on the display	visible on the display
Travel Case	no	yes	yes
Battery charge notification	power button LED	on the display	on the display
Charger	standard Oral B charger	sandard Oral B charger	magnetic charger
Charge time	up to 16 hours	up to 12 hours	up to 3 hours

There’s no need to worry about storing this information. This blog will always be available (as are all the previous blogs) on the blog page on the Gentle Dental website

I’m not a great app lover when it comes to thing like brushing my teeth and when I first got the brush I could not manage to connect it to the app, so I never bothered looking at it. However, doing my research for this article I decided to just get on board with it. What a revelation.

The app tracks progress using three sensors in the main body of the brush. These have been trained via an algorithm to track over 1,000 brushing behaviours which essentially means the brush knows how you brush and teaches you to adapt your habits.

The app is used in real-time while you brush, with a 3D map of the mouth visible and dots to symbolise the different areas of your teeth. Once you have successfully covered each surface the dots fade and the image turns white. Dots remaining – you missed a spot. Live tracking of 6 zones in the mouth is available from iO5 upwards - iO4 does not have this function.

However, this is not fool proof! All the dots dissappeared when I used the app BUT my highest score to date for areas covered was 86%. I am not happy. The gauntlet is down. 100% or die!!!!!!!

How do you grab this bargain. We have cards, each with a unique code, which you can pick up when you visit or call/email/text and ask us to send the code across to you. Simple! Remember there is no need to rush. The offer is valid until June 30th 2024.

Well thats all folks - for now. I hope you enjoy the summer and for the sake of all those stuck in school through sweltering June, I sincerely hope the weather picks up again.

Regards

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team

Which electric toothbrush head to choose.

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It is so dark, damp and blustery outside as I write this. We actually had to put the heating on for short bursts of time this week as clients were shivering. After an hour lying still, you can start to feel quite cool.

It certainly has been a patchy summer weatherwise- typically English I’d say. As you can see, we were cooking our BBQ under a brolly when we were in Cornwall with friends in July! (Credit to james for the beautiful pose). Rob was doing his cooking in the kitchen...and I was behind the camera with a cocktail! Very relaxing!

I had a conversation with Rob recently where I explained that at school in Ireland, (a long time ago now!), we learned the seasons differently than here and for me August is autumn and therefore the weather is autumnal - which it definitely has been this year.

Autumn - harvesting the crops and preparing the ground for new growth after the winter. August, September and October, Autumn. November, December and January, Winter - not a lot happening. February, March and April, Spring – new growth starts as crocus, snowdrops etc herald the new season. May, June and July, Summer- everything, including the weeds, grows like wildfire.

Needless to say, we ended up agreeing!!!!!! that he is incorrect to think of August as Summer. The weather forecast for the next week is looking good though so here’s hoping for an Indian summer.

Team News

And now a word or two from Karenn, our dental therapist (having a lunchtime siesta).

As you may know I am from Mexico and although I am very happy with my life here in England, I love my roots and miss my homeland and its culture. Because I cannot go home to Mexico too often, I decided to get involved in Mexican events here and I joined ‘Coleres Mexicanos'.

Coleres Mexicanos translates to Mexican Colours and is a group of proud Mexican women in love with the traditional Mexican dance folklore. In Mexico we grow up dancing and a Mexican baby is introduced to dancing from birth. Grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, pretty much everyone who picks a baby up, dances with them rather than lull them to sleep. So our earliest experience is dance, and we naturally want to dance. By the age of 10 we know all of the folklore dances.

I joined the group because I love dancing but I also want to share the Mexican culture with everyone in England.So far, I have been involved in two events, one in Bournemouth and one in Southampton. We do about 4 each year. And let me tell you, every time I perform, my eyes tear up and I feel immense joy in my heart. It is such an adrenaline rush. There are no words to describe my feelings for it. Plus, it gives me an excuse to wear heels. And I loooooove heels!

There is no website but if you ever want to join me for an evening of Mexican dance, keep an eye on the Coleres Mexicanos Facebook or Instagram profile. I would love to see you there.

You may have noticed on Anus name badge that it says 'trainee dental nurse'. She has been studying diligently for the past year and has now passed her exam, first time. Congratulations to her from all of us. She is just waiting for the official piece of paper to say she is registered so we can change her name badge to 'Dental Nurse' rather than trainee.

Anus husband is the Gurkhas and fantastic news for them – he has been promoted. Sad news for us – that means he will be moving to the midlands most likely. So we are on the hunt for a new trainee dental nurse. Keep us I mind should you have friends or family members who fancy a new career.

And now for the science (or is it the boring bit)!

As a follow on to the last blog when I spoke about Oral B electric toothbrushes, I thought I might give a little information about the heads. We frequently get asked about which is the most appropriate.

A few points before I outline the differences so it is less of a minefield when you rock up to Boots or such like to buy new heads.

Firstly, while it is easier to do a good job on toothbrushing with an electric toothbrush, a properly used manual toothbrush can give a great result. Conversely an improperly used electric toothbrush can give a poor job. It is all about the technique – getting the angle correct and holding the brush still to allow it to do its job.

Secondly, because the Oral B technology is all about oscillation of the bristles and rotation of the head, the shape of the head needs to be circular.

Thirdly, did you know there is a visible use indicator on your brush head? The green bristles turn to yellow when it is time for a change.

Oral B electric toothbrush ranges

There are numerous different ranges of Oral B toothbrushes and numerous versions within each range. I really hope I am not going to confuse you all here. I find it confusing when I go looking at shelves of all the different ones. Pro, Genius, Smart, Vitality and iO.

Other than gadgetry and the ability to interact with an app, the main difference is the less expensive ranges are less powerful – as in fewer oscillations and rotations per minute that the other ranges.

I spoke only about the Pro and iO in the last blog as these are the ones the current offer applies to. If you want something more than a simple ‘one button does everything’ brush, the iO on offer should be more cost effective than most of the other ranges. And the offer price on Pro makes it equally as affordable as the cheaper ranges.

iO toothbrush heads

If you are using the iO brush, your choice of heads currently is limited to 2 for general everyday use.

Ultimate Clean and Gentle Care. There are 2 slightly more specialised/specific heads - Ultimate White and Specialised Clean.

Ultimate Clean - the blurb says it give ‘up to 100% more plaque removal with superior clinical results’ when compared to a manual toothbrush. And that its ‘tuft in tuft bristle structure with 16-degree angle allows the bristle to reach deeper in between the teeth’.

Gentle Care has up to 4000 soft bristles and a cushioning outer ring which adapts to the curves of the teeth and protects the gums from trauma.

Which to get? It is personal choice really. Both, when used with the correct technique, will give an equally good clean. If you can be quite heavy handed and frequently damage your gums with the bristles then the Gentle Care may be the one for you.

Be warned though, my experience of ‘heavy-handed’ clients is that they, (just like me!), are heavy handed because they are always rushing to get onto the next item on their list. Therefore, a gentle brush might not feel like it is doing enough for you.

The Gentle Care is a definite must for sensitive souls who don’t like anything aggressive or harsh on their skin/body and those who are concerned about gum recession and/or suffer with sensitive teeth.

When it comes to whitening, there is only one way to actually whiten/alter the colour of your teeth and that is by professional means (as in whitening gel from a dental practice). Whitening toothpastes and whitening heads/modes on electric toothbrushes will help to keep staining from tea and coffee etc. at bay but will not remove it once it has established itself on your tooth and will never alter the intrinsic shade of the tooth.

The Ultimate White head has ‘polishing petals which will polish away surface staining so if you have the brush which has a whitening mode and you drink a lot of tea, coffee (especially black), red wine or eat curries, it may be worth a go. I suggest you start with this immediately after a hygienist visit when Karenn or myself will have removed any built-up staining. You may then be able to mainly keep it under control between visits.

The Specialised Head has just a few tufts of bristles on it and is designed to reach the areas nothing else can easily reach such as areas where the teeth are quite crooked or wisdom teeth that are not fully through. It is also a really useful head to have if you are wearing traditional (traintrack) braces or have dental implants. It is also my ‘go to’ when I have clients who just cannot get on with anything else to clean in between the teeth.

Other ranges.

The following heads work with all the remaining toothbrush base handles so Vitality, Pro, Genius and Smart and you have a larger range from which to choose for daily tooth cleaning. – Precision Clean, Cross Action, Floss action, Sensitive Clean, 3D White and the Interspace Head.

The Precision Clean head is ‘an oldie but a goodie’. Basic, with no frills and flounces. Although I did read that it now comes with x shaped bristle ends rather than rounded ones. The blurb says this means they can clean in areas rounded end bristle cannot. I assume all of the Oral B heads now have x shaped bristle ends rather than round. Never too old to learn something new!

The Cross Action head ‘features more than 2200 perfectly angled bristles to remove up to 100% more plaque than a manual toothbrush’. The Floss Action blurb is ‘specifically engineered MicroPulse bristles that loosen plaque’, with ‘up to 100% more plaque removal than a manual toothbrush.

Which to get? Sorry I am no real help as again, it is personal choice really

Of the 3 outlined above, the Cross Action and Precision Clean are my preference. I find a lot of clients who use the Floss Action seem to end up with traumatised gums. Personally, I hated the hard plastic bits when I tried it and found it difficult to not massacre my gums.

Similarly, I find the Cross Action quite hard. It does soften after you start brushing but the first few seconds can be tough. A quick run under warm water helps – but then the toothpaste dribbles all down the brush handle - and your hand – and it sprays everywhere – the downsides of electric toothbrushing!

And now we get to my personal favourite – Sensitive Clean. Love it, love it, love it! It has soft bristles and does a brilliant job. Same thing as with the iO sensitive head – not for those who want to feel the burn, as it were. Apologies for the German in the picture above, this was the only image I could source. It translates as ultra-tight bristle hairs!

The 3D White has a polishing cup in the centre and like the Cross Action is quite hard on the gums. Regarding its effectiveness see the info in the iO whitening head section.

Please do not use this head except on the whitening mode on your brush.

And finally, the Interspace head, exactly the same as the iO Specialised head outlined above - it gets to the places that nothing else can! Clear as mud now on toothbrush heads?

So now that I have messed with your heads, overloaded you with information and provided no clarity, I am going to sign off.

Have a good weekend.

Karenn, Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.

Save the Date

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Gosh, it is hard to believe that Christmas is almost upon us again. It feels like we have only just packed the christmas tree away at Gentle Dental. These last few wet and dreary days certainly haven’t helped to get me in the spirit. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some frosty mornings and sunny days.

We have finally closed the Just Giving page for the 100km walk Rob and I did in May. The final total was just over £4200. What an achievement. Thank you all so much for the support and encouragement. It certainly help on the long slog.

We haven’t had a lot happen at Gentle Dental over the summer/autumn so team news is a bit sparse I’m afraid. The most fun thing we did was a team day out at Bombay Saphire distillery. Well worth a visit.

The cocktail masterclass - learn to make 3 cocktails in an hour - was great fun and thankfully it was a sunny day with lots of seating outside in which to imbibe over a period of time. They need to suss a way for one to carry 3 cocktail glasses in one go though! Knocking back 3 cocktails in an hour would have been a tall order, even for an Irish woman.

Not so salubrius a venue for our next outing. Tonight we are cooking at ours for the team. Karenn has never had a traditional roast dinner so we are obliging with that. Perhaps we will have pics to post from that next newsletter.

Looking towards the New year, Gentle Dental celebrates its 20th birthday in February 2024. And we are having a party on Thursday Feb 1st.

Thursday, February 1st we are opening the practice for clients to visit. Maybe you have always wondered how we sterilise things, or what checks we run on equipment etc. Come armed with your questions. Every area of the practice (well maybe not the staff room- the usual messy space) will be open for a tour.

It may be that you have no interest in the day-to-day workings and simply fancy dropping in to say hi and join us for a glass of bubbles and a cake. That’s fine by us.

Whilst for many of you the thought of going to your dentist for a party is a weird one, we hope some of you can pop in for a while. Keep an eye on your emails in January for an invitation. We wil ask you to indicated a time slot in which you will drop in so we know approximately how many to expect. (Got to have enough cake and bubbles lined up!)

A bit of a departure for me in these blogs is that I am including some before and after pictures of work that Rob and Karenn have done.

Numerous clients follow us on Instagram and Facebook and the feedback we get when we post these pictures is great. A usual comment is that they had no idea what could be achieved and it is nice to see the work. I know lots of you, like me, are not social media lovers so I though I might occasionally include some of the work here.

I have chosen this one as I think the difference is immense, both in appearance and in the confidence the improved smile has given to this client. This was a collaboration between Rob and Karenn.

The client, A.M., wanted to make the teeth on the top right match with those on the other side, He also did not like the way his top front teeth tilted inwards and found his inability to smile with confidence was making people think he was quiet and introverted.

The issue on the top right was he is congenitially missing the eye tooth and the no 4 tooth, a completely different shape, is in its space. In order to make his smile look better and ensure the midline of his smile is in the midline of this face, we used Invisalign. This moved the teeth on the top right backwards and recreated the space for the missing eyetooth. A dental implant was then placed and Rob made a crown, ensuring it matched the rest of his smile. Along way A. had hygienist visits, tooth whitening and composite bonding to perfect the shape of some of the teeth.

I hope you agree this really is a 'smile transformation' and it is so nice to see how confidently A now smiles, beams in fact.

Now some housekeeping bits.

We are finding many of you are arriving very stressed due to delays with parking so I thought I’d mention the ongoing work in the Central car park and on Fishertons Street.

Both are having an effect on parking space availability and the length of time it takes to get through town and parked. It may be an idea to allow extra time when planning for you appointments with us. We are always happy to make you a tea or coffee if you find you have arrived with time to spare.

Parking issues aside, the river area is beginning to look great. I'm loving that Salisbury now has a beach, pebbly but still a 'beach', and rapids. (They are ever so small in the background of the pic).

I have absolutely no picture in my head for how it will look once it's finished but I'm sure it will look lovely and be a welcoming, picturesque pathway into the city for tourists as well as an additional green space for the rest of us.

Finally FYI - our opening times over the festive season.

As always Rob will be available to offer advice should any of you have a problem and we do have cover arranged with another private practice should any of you need to be seen.

It simply remains for us to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Regards

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team

20th Birthday Party Invitation

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Information about upcoming road closures

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Below are the details I can find from the various websites about disruption to traffic in Salisbury throughout February.

INFORMATION ABOUT UPCOMING ROAD CLOSURESRoad closures required A36/A345Essential gas main replacement – A36 Churchill Way West, North side of Castle Roundabout and Castle Road northboundFrom Monday 05 February, SGN engineers will be carrying out essential work to replace the gas main on the eastbound lanes of A36 Churchill Way West approach to Castle Road Roundabout and northbound up Castle Road. Due to the location of the gas mains in the road, road closures will be required as follows:Phase one: 5 – 17 FebruaryRoad closure from exit of Waitrose/Superstores along A36 eastbound to Castle roundabout and no northbound access to Castle RoadThis will mean…The north side of Castle Roundabout (A36) Closed – traffic on diversionCastle Road closed from the A36 heading northbound – traffic on diversionWest side of Castle Roundabout remains openNO Access to Castle Road A345 northbound – follow signed diversion routeAccess to Waitrose and Superstores will not be affected – no exit from superstores eastbound on the A36Phase two: 17 – 26 FebruaryWorking along Castle Road (A345) with one lane closure– southbound lanes will be made two way

Didn't we have a lovely time....

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Didn’t we have a lovely time!

Thank you to everyone who managed to make it along to our birthday celebration. We had a fabulous day. I’ve included a few photos to give you a flavour of the day. It was so much fun to meet everyone in such different circumstances. And as you can see from the photos it was very social. Just like a drinks party at home really.

At the end of the day we were shattered and ready for a quiet night - though Jodie expressed her desire for a rest differently than the usual 'dying for a cuppa'!! Obviously having fun is harder work than actually working!

We got so many cards and good wishes and wanted to say thank you for those. I've included a pic of a beautiful home made card we got which wished us a 'fluo-ride of a fun party' and included a joke which I will pass on here.

Q. What does the dentist of the year get?

A. A little plaque.

They don't get better than that folks!

Much as it may embarass this client I cannot resist posting the next pictures. The card was from a client wishing us well. And Tims' smile!!! What can I say other that to publish a disclaimer - Gentle Dental had no part in the creation of this smile. I couldn't understand why he was quite so enthuastic about attending the celebration when I met him a few days earlier. It amazing what you can pick up on Amazon (other purchasing platforms exist), and how evolution needs to take us further away from gorillas. Not that I am comparing Tim to a gorrilla - or am I?

Now to more serious topics - I realise we need to keep reminiding you of the additional benefits you receive as a member of Gentle Dental. We frequently find that clients have not remembered about these when things happen with their teeth.

I know I have spoken about these before but I thought I would tell you some 'real-life' stories so you can see them in action, as it were, and it might cement the idea of these benefits in your mind and allow you to call on them when the need arises.

I am focusing on the two main benefits - trauma cover & worldwide emergency cover.

Last summer we got a call from a client. She had a new puppy which had jumped up and “smacked' her in the face a few days previously and she was now experiencing pain in her front tooth, which had previously been root treated. We asked her to come to see us for an emergency assessment which, on the membership, is free of charge (normally £170). There wasn’t anything signposting a major problem so we had to play a ‘wait and see what rears its head’ game and two weeks later the tooth obliged. On exam at this stage Rob could tell that the root of the tooth had split. The only option to relieve the discomfort, was to take the tooth out.

Our first priority always is to get a client out of pain so we moved forward, made a simple denture and fitted the denture on the same day as we took the tooth out so our client was not left with a gap at the front of her mouth. We now had breathing space in which to plan the next steps.

Taking out a front tooth is straight forward for us but very traumatic for the client as, obviously, the gap is visible to all. And while there are numerous options for replacement of the missing tooth - a denture, a dental bridge or an implant - these can be quite expensive and take a long time to complete.

We arranged time to chat about the options for replacing the tooth and reminded the client about the trauma cover through her membership which would cover some of the cost of the treatment. This helped with the decision as it certainly made the more expensive option, a dental implant, a more affordable option. And this is what the client chose.

The membership allowed the client to reclaim almost £1700, approximately 0.4% of her total spend. A very good return on a simple additional benefit to the membership, which costs you, the client, nothing.

The below pictures are in order of immediately after the puppy incident, a few days later when the tooth decided to show us what was going on and finally the implant and crown in place. As you can see from the final picture it is totally natural looking in her smile.

With regard to the Worldwide cover, I had a client who mentioned at his hygienist visit how his recent holiday to the Caribbean was almost spoilt when a crown, visible when he smiled, came out. The resort saved the day and found a dentist who recemented it for him. However, his holiday insurance excess made it not worth the effort to make a claim. I reminded him about his worldwide emergency cover and advised that he submit his receipts. Two weeks later he had a payment in to his account which did not cover the entire cost but was way more than his travel insurance would have paid.

So basically, if you are a member of Gentle Dental and anything dental occurs when you are away from home, whether in this country or abroad, find a dentist to sort things for you, get a receipt and on your return either call us or Practice Plan to find out your next steps to make a claim.

If you are not on the membership and would like to find out more speak to any member of the team who will be happy to help. It is possible to be a member and make use of the members benefits alongside a work or personal private health plan. We are more than happy to chat this through with you and explain the savings you can make.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to one of our new team member, Shilpa, who is a dental hygienist and she will be joining the team in June. Karenn has moved away from Salisbury and is finding the travel exhausting so she is cutitng down on her days. Shilpa stepping into the breach seems fitting as it was through Karenn that I first met her.

Shilpa adn Karenn worked together at another practice and I first met Shipla about 2 years ago at a regional study day run by the British Society for Dental Hygienists and Therapists (BSDHT). Since then I have come across her at every conference and meeting I attend and I don't go to them all by any means. So unless she is stalking me, Shilpa obviously attended everything she possibly can to ensure she is up to date and knowledgeable about her role.

Shilpa actually trained as a dentist in India and when she moved to this country with her young family she just couldn't take the time out to study for the dentistry exams she would need to take to allow her to work here. She also realised that dentistry in the UK is quite different to India. With this in mind Shilpa decided to apply to register as a hygienist and while that was happening she worked as a dental nurse, did the training course and registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) as a nurse. She is a popular choice with the entire team, most of whom have met and chatted with her at the various training days we attend. We are looking forward to welcoming her to the team. Also having tasted her traditional home cooking I am hoping for lots of tasty samosas etc. for the staff room.

We also say a sad farewell to Laura who has decided to pack a backpack to head to sunnier climes for a while. Laura you will know from the reception team and she has been with us almost two years. She will be missed by us all.

We have welcomed some other new faces to the team. However in the past I have enthuastically written about folks and then within a month or two they have decided it is not for them. So rather than jinx things I will wait off and introduce the other new team members in the next newsletter.

We have reached the time of year when we work out our charity donation and choose our new charity. Just to remind you this is a £10 donation we make to our chosen charity based on referrals of new clients we receive from you lovely people. Last year we continued to support Hope For Tomorrow, the mobile cancer treatment service in Wiltshire and through your generous support raised over £3000 in sponsorship for our walk. Between this sponsorship and the £10 donation for referrals, we raised approximately £4500 for them. Therefore, if we receive no objections, we feel we would like to put the £960 towards a donation to our new charity so we spread our support.

Thank you so much for the faith you place in us and the confidence with which you mention us to friends, family and work colleagues. We will continue to work hard to not let you down.

And now to our charity for this year and our decision making process on which one. One of our clients is reaching an '0' birthday (70th) and is a keen cyclist. He already embarks on what I would call 'mad' cycles each year but this year he is pushing it even further and doing a Duathalon. But not just any duathalon. This one is a 16 mile run, 106 mile cycle and to finish, you just have to climb Mt Snowden! I'm exhausted just writing about it. He intends to raise money for Riding for the Disabled (RDA) and we decided we would join him in his quest (not in the actual cycling etc) and choose this as our charity this year.

RDA is a nationwide organisation run entirely by volunteers and does exactly what it says on the tin. Our local branch is in Wilton. Rather than write lots about them, here is the link to their website if you would like to find out more. I'm sure Rob and I will come up with some hairbrained way to raise more funds for the charity, though it certainy won't be as mad as Jerrys.

It simply remains for me to wish you all a Happy Easter and fingers crossed we get some dry weather in which to enjoy it. I'm off to Ireland to visit my family so I know that is a vain hope for me.

See you all soon.

Regards

Niamh, Rob and the Gentle Dental team.