business-2026646_1920 (1)

Update on Dental Services at National Coagulation Centre (NCC) – March 16

The following update on dental services has been received from Dr. Alison Dougall.

Dear Patients,

We have reduced our dental service at NCC to an emergency only service from today, 16/03/2020.

All patients can be confident that Cross Infection Control is always stringent and of the highest standard at the State-of-the-Art Facilities at the NCC. We continue to take decontamination extremely seriously and this is led by our vigilant dental nurse Laura Parkinson. Historically we have always provided the same level of vigilance to ALL patients whether they are carrying blood borne viruses or not with use of four handed dentistry, and dedicated dental nurses to decontaminate the whole surgery between each patient and the highest levels and Sterilisation Procedures and traceable instruments over and above National Guidelines.

However, providing many aspects of dental care provides an especially difficult challenge during the Pandemic due to the presence of Covid-19 in both saliva and the nasal passages. Many of the dental procedures we carry out can produce involuntary coughing or gagging. Furthermore, the use of aerosols such as those used by the scalers when we are cleaning teeth and the drills to provide fillings are discouraged during this time as they send particles into the air.

Therefore, treatment which is available at this time in the NCC is limited but includes:

  • Dental Extractions
  • Placement of temporary fillings
  • Smoothing teeth where they are lacerating the mouth
  • First stage of root canal to relieve acute pain in front teeth

If you do have a severe dental emergency, we would ask you to do the following;

Telephone the NCC (see numbers below) and one of the team will contact you to assess your dental emergency over the phone and schedule a telephone consult with our dental team as soon as possible.

  1. Please do not arrive at the NCC unannounced.
  2. Please do not attend the NCC if you have any symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 infection, if you have been in contact with someone who has the virus or if you have recently travelled to one of the “hot spot” countries.

The dental team led by Dr. Alison Dougall will contact you within 24 hours ask some questions about your health status and your dental problem.

The dental team can often manage the acute symptoms of a dental emergency with tailored advice and a prescription and will be happy to arrange this by telephone or fax without the need to come into the NCC

If you are NOT in a risk category for COVID-19 and you have an urgent problem such as severe swelling, severe bleeding or severe pain not relieved by pain killers you will be given an emergency appointment to be seen at the NCC to receive emergency care as appropriate.

If you are in a risk category for COVID-19 and have severe swelling interfering with breathing or involving the eye then your care will need to be provided at a designated COVID-19 Emergency Dental Service and such treatment will be co-ordinated by the team at the NCC to assure that you receive safe risk assessed care.

NCC Opening Hours 08.30-17.00, Monday to Friday

Phone: 01 410 3129/410 3130/416 2141

Out of Hours Service: after 17.00 or at Weekends and Bank Holidays
Contact St James\’s Hospital via the main switchboard on 01 410 3000 and ask for the Haematology SHO on-call.