As three in four dentists (74%) say they will be unable to provide a full service this year due to COVID-19, the Faculty of Dental Surgery (FDS) at the Royal College of Surgeons of England has called on the government to provide every possible support to dentistry.

The FDS surveyed more than 450 dentists to understand what barriers remain to resuming services, which were cancelled in the wider efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

As dental services began to resume over the summer, nearly all dentists surveyed (96%) said they were providing a service, but not the 'full service' that they would have provided before the pandemic. Private practice respondents were considerably more likely to have provided vitally important 'aerosol generating procedures', most commonly associated with the use of a normal dental drill, with 83% having done so. In NHS hospital practice, this fell to 62%, and fell further to 40% in NHS general dental practice.

When looking ahead, a third (34%) of respondents did not know when they would fully resume services, with a further 36% saying they did not expect to resume full pre-pandemic services until 2021. Overall, three in four (74%) said they would be unable to provide a full service this year or don't know when they will be able to do so.

Comments revealed that time taken between each patient to comply with new infection control protocols brought in because of COVID-19 was slowing down how many patients could be seen. Dentists are seeing far fewer patients per 'session' (half day) than prior to the pandemic. Where 46% of dentists were able to see more than ten patients each morning or afternoon before COVID-19, only 7% can say the same now.

Only half (48%) of NHS general practice dentists said they had an adequate supply of PPE to enable them to do their job safely. Dentists working in hospitals, however, were much more confident, with 80% agreeing they had adequate supplies.

Leading dental surgeons from the Faculty of Dental Surgery on 2 October said that services 'should not be switched off again' in a second wave, as dentistry is an essential part of healthcare. In a new report, A resumption of dental services? Dental surgeons' experiences of delivering care since 8 June 2020 (https://bit.ly/3lBCnff), the Faculty calls on the UK government to:

1. Keep dentistry open throughout the remaining 'stages' of the COVID-19 pandemic, using PPE and infection prevention measures to mitigate risks and keep patients safe

2. Ensure adequate PPE across regions and settings. Dental surgeons across specialties remain reliant on PPE to continue to provide dental care. NHS general practice dentists need parity of access with NHS hospital practices, to ensure patients have access to safe treatment

3. Tackle the barriers to full resumption of dental care, particularly 'fallow time', by promoting and monitoring the use of ventilation systems to increase the number of 'air changes per hour' in dental settings.

The Dean of the Faculty, Mr Matthew Garrett said: 'We need urgent action in particular to help NHS general practice surgeries resume routine procedures like fillings and crown repair. These help the long-term good oral health of our patients and help prevent unnecessary dental extractions.

'It is also crucial that dentists are able to see more patients each day, getting back to pre-pandemic levels as soon as possible. This can be achieved with better ventilation systems in surgeries, and with an adequate supply of PPE.

'As with the rest of society, dentistry is going to have to "live with" COVID for the foreseeable future. We need every support possible to open services up again and keep them running no matter what.'