Following the First Ministers announcement yesterday, we have now had communication from our Chief Dental Officer, who has clarified that healthcare, including dentistry is deemed an essential service, so we can remain open and travel to appointments is permitted. Only purely cosmetic procedures (facial aesthetics, whitening etc) are not permitted during this period. We are working hard today and over the next few days to look at our appointment books and we may unfortunately have to reschedule your appointment to minimise the amount of people in the buildings and the number of contacts between patients. However, unless you hear from us directly, you can assume your appointment will go ahead as planned.   We have put a lot of work into making sure both practices are as safe as possible for our staff and patients alike and this is true now more than ever, our cross -infection controls and all the other mitigating factors we have implemented mean you can rest assured you will be in safe hands.   We also completely understand that there are now many of our patients are anxious and some that have returned to shielding and won’t feel comfortable coming out at the moment. If this applies to you or a family member and you have an appointment made in the coming weeks you wish to reschedule, then just give our receptionists a call and they will be happy to postpone or remake this for you.   This setback will unfortunately affect the ability for us to make a dent in the backlog of patients still awaiting outstanding treatment and we are sorry for the inconvenience this will cause. We will of course be doing all that we can. As before we will still be here to see you for any emergencies or other concerns, so please don’t hesitate to call us if you need any assistance with any dental issues.   At this time the surgery doors will remain locked and only persons with an appointment will be allowed in the building so please don’t turn up with-out one. Please wear a face covering, arrive on time, and where possible wait in your car and let us know you are here.  On entry, please use our hand sanitizer and await instructions from our staff, who are there to keep you as safe as possible.  As always, anyone who has any of the symptoms of COVID-19, is awaiting a test result or who has been asked to self- isolate should NOT attend the practice at present. This certainly isn’t the New Year’s message we were hoping to post, but with the vaccination programme underway, we hope that things will start to look better again soon and we will be able to get back to some kind of normality in the spring