Rapid Review of recommendations for re-opening dental services published

Professors Jan Clarkson and Craig Ramsay led the review group which included the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP), NHS Education for Scotland (NES), the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee and Manchester, and Cochrane Oral Health.

Professor Clarkson explained: 'Now, with attention focused on planning the re-opening and restructuring of dental services, there is an urgent need to map out how dental services are to return to providing wider patient care.

'Given that we have only really known about COVID-19 for about 120 days, robust evidence to inform how to approach re-opening is scarce or non-existent. The same concerns exist across the world and therefore we decided to formally review the recommendations being produced in different countries as a resource for decision makers.'

Professor Ramsay, Professor of Health Care Evaluation and Director, Health Services Research Unit (HSRU), University of Aberdeen added: 'We identified sources from 11 countries and found relevant recommendations fell into five themes: practice preparation, personal protective equipment, management of the clinical area, dental procedures, and cleaning and disinfection.