The Care We Take

Facilities

Our treatment rooms are purpose-built to offer you the highest levels of comfort, and we strictly follow all current guidelines for cross-infection control.

Nervous Patients

We are happy to treat nervous or anxious patients. We often find that, with a gentle, friendly and non-threatening approach even the most anxious patient relaxes enough to have routine treatment. Several of our treatment rooms have decorated ceilings to help put children at their ease (see picture).

For those that find it all just too traumatic we can provide oral sedation to make you nice and relaxed. Occasionally we encounter child patients who, for whatever reason, cannot cope with routine dental treatment, and these patients are referred locally to special clinics equipped for treatment under sedation.

Preventive Care for Children

Dental decay

This can affect the first (baby) teeth as well as the permanent teeth which begin to emerge from the age of 6 years. If the child has experienced decay in the first teeth, it becomes very important to do everything possible to prevent it from affecting the permanent teeth, which have to last for the rest of that young persons life. The ways to do this are:

1. Reduce the frequency of intake of sweet drinks and sugary, refined food, replacing this with a healthy well balanced diet

2. To treat the teeth in some way as to make them more able to resist decay (Fluoride application and fissure sealants)

The regular use of fluoride supplements such as gels and tablets is no longer recommended because of difficulties with administering the correct dosage. The use of fluoridated toothpaste, in conjunction with a healthy diet is all that is generally required. Oh, and by the way, the water in this part of the world is not fluoridated.

Fissure Sealants

Another way of preventing decay (right) in back teeth (molars) is to seal the pits and fissures in the biting surfaces of the back teeth with a layer of plastic resin called a fissure sealant:

This is best done before decay affects a tooth, although very small cavities can be sealed off in this way too. This procedure only protects the biting surfaces of the back teeth so it is unwise to rely on it entirely. It is also vital that frequency of dietary sugar intake is reduced that the child's oral hygiene is improved.

To facilitate this we have a trained Oral Health Educator at the practice and your dentist will refer child patients to her if the need arises.

Injury

Everyone hopes this will not happen to their children but sadly due to the rough and tumble of everyday life, accidents do happen and teeth can get broken. In the setting of the sports field though, such injuries are largely preventable by the use of mouthguards. We can provide your child with a custom made sports mouthguard to protect the teeth and jaws from impact injury .

Referrals

We strive to offer as broad a range of services to our patients as possible. Our existing patients (and even other dentists) regularly refer patients to us for general dental care or for specific treatments such as tooth whitening or implants. Occasionally, however, it may be necessary for us to refer a patient elsewhere for specialist treatment, for example orthodontics (braces), oral surgery (wisdom teeth) and periodontal treatment (gum problems). We refer patients to specialists and consultants in local orthodontic practices and hospitals, as well as some London dental hospitals. Occasionally it is necessary to refer patients to special clinics equipped for treatment under sedation.

Emergencies and 'out-of-hours' care

Most dental emergencies can usually wait until normal surgery hours when your dentist will be available to deal with your problem. A broken filling or tooth, or a lost crown will normally not give you too much trouble. The usual anti-inflammatory painkillers (Ibuprofen and Paracetamol) may be taken if discomfort is experienced. If you have a swelling, caused by infection, that seems to be getting worse, antibiotics may need to be prescribed. In this situation a dentist's advice should be sought as soon as possible. If you have persistent bleeding from a recent extraction site, follow the instructions given to you at the time of the extraction, and if this does not work, contact the on-call dentist as soon as possible. Traumatic injuries to childrens teeth are situations where it is important to contact the dentist as soon as possible.

If any of our regular patients have a genuine dental emergency involving either severe pain, swelling, or trauma they are invited to call the practice on 0208 529 1422 (our main number) whereupon an answerphone message will inform them of the phone number of the on-call dentist who will be pleased to give help and advice.

Cross Infection Control

We want our patients (and ourselves too for that matter) to be safe and healthy in our practice. Infection control continues to be the subject of intensive research and debate in dentistry, so keeping this aspect of practice life up to date is essential, as well as being a legal requirement.

In order to make sure that everyone works to the same standards and uses the same procedures at Apolline House, we have induction training for all members of staff in the protocols of instrument decontamination, equipment and laboratory work. We manage and dispose of our clinical waste in the correct manner, and we ensure that measures are in place for effective personal protection, including immunisation of staff against hepatitis B.

We have recently invested heavily in the purchase of new type 'B' vacuum autoclaves which are considered to represent the 'gold standard' in instrument sterilisation.

This, coupled with a procedure-based dental instrument tray system enables us to ensure that the instruments we use on your teeth have been perfectly sterilised and are completely free of contamination.

We routinely use latex procedure gloves when treating patients (they are not worn as an alternative to hand washing). Please tell us if you are allergic to latex so that we can use an alternative glove material. Gloves are single use and are changed for a new pair after every patient. In between patients we clean our hands using alcoholic hand rubs/gels because it has been shown to be more effective in destroying transient microbes than antimicrobial handwashing agents or soap and water.

In addition, face masks and dedicated surgery clothing are worn. You will not see nursing staff from this practice out in the street in their uniforms, since surgery gowns and uniforms can become contaminated by splatter, and to transport this out

of the building could constitute a serious risk to the spread of infection.

Before employing new members of staff, we insist that they have their health checked to exclude the possibility that they may be HbeAg positive (Hepatitis B) or a carrier, and testing for Chickenpox, and Hepatitis C (HCV) is encouraged.

All in all we keep a team approach to infection control, and we always strive to keep up to date with changing infection risks in dentistry and standards of good practice.

And what of the future? We are looking into ways to centralise our instrument sterilisation so that high standards are easier to maintain, and that systems are in place to trace instruments through the decontamination cycle and link them to patients.

Radiation Protection and X-Rays

We are users of equipment which generates X-rays and as such we are registered as users with the Health and Safety Exectutive. We are advised on our radiation protection policies for patients and staff by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB).

We attend formal training courses on a 5 year cycle, to comply with Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (IR[ME]R 2000) which relate to YOUR safety, and the Ionising Radiations Regulations (IRR99) which relate to OUR safety and the operation of safe X-ray equipment.

So what does all of this mean to you? It means that we operate to nationally agreed safety standards. We only take x-rays if they are absolutely necessary (we DON'T perform 'screening' or take 'routine' X-rays). We use the fastest speed film available in order to keep exposures low, and we also use special devices which limit the beam size, cutting right down on the dose given.

Lead Aprons

You might be surprised to learn that there is no justification for the routine use of lead aprons in dental radiography (advice issued by the NRPB), although they may be used for a female patient who is, or suspects she may be, pregnant.

Are dental X-ray doses dangerous?

There is a very small risk involved with any exposure to radiation but technological advances in the x-ray equipment used means that the actual risk is minimal. The physics involved in calculating doses is complicated stuff best left to medical physics experts, so to help you understand the level of risk involved, we have compared the amount of radiation you will receive when having dental x-rays with natural background radiation;

A single dental x-ray exposes you to 2 μSv (micro-sieverts) of radiation.

The time taken to receive the same dose from natural background radiation at ground level is 8 hours.

Average annual exposure to natural background radiation breaks down as follows: Terrestrial sources 350 μSv (mainly from building materials), Internal sources from inhalation and ingestion 270 μSv (worst food for this is shellfish), and Cosmic radiation 360 μSv (at sea level).

During air travel you will be getting 10 μSv per hour (eqivalent to 5 dental x-rays!)

All this adds up to an average of 2,240 μSv per person per year, not including medical/dental exposures. In other words, the benefit of appropriately taken dental X-rays massively outweighs their potential risk to your health.