Accessing PPE – an update for dental practices in NHS Scotland

A message from Gordon Beattie, Director of National Procurement, NHS National Services Scotland and Paul Cushley, Director of Dentistry, NHS National Services Scotland.

Dear Colleague

As Director of NHS National Services Scotland National Procurement, I wanted to personally reach out to all dental practices in Scotland to provide you with an update on how we are working in partnership with your Health Boards, so that you have access to vital PPE, to meet your needs.

This is part of our efforts, amongst many, through working in partnership with Health Boards to respond to the national demand for PPE. During this time, we meet weekly with Health Boards, to ensure that together, we are understanding, addressing, and delivering to meet PPE needs for all areas of healthcare.

On this basis, in agreement with Health Board partners, I wanted to take an opportunity to share some planned next steps for dental practices, to continue our efforts.

To ensure these measures fully recognise the unique nature of the dental community in Scotland, and the challenges you currently face, I have engaged with NSS Dental Director Paul Cushley and relevant colleagues.

Our next steps to support you are as follows:

National Procurement has agreed with Health Boards across Scotland to deliver a supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), for onward distribution (by boards) to all dental practices.
Mechanisms for the management of onward distribution will be managed by each individual Health Board.
Health Boards will receive PPE equipment that includes aprons, masks, visors and gloves and will prepare this for onward delivery to individual practices from 4th June onwards.
Allocation to Health Boards will be based on the number of practices in each Health Board.

Maintaining Stocks

To help support health and social care in Scotland in the overall management of PPE supply, we encourage dental practices to actively participate in any surveys for stock information, when requested from their local boards. This will ensure we maintain a good awareness of the stock position and allocate any additional stock on the basis of clinical need.

In the event that your practice begins to run short of PPE supplies, you should make contact through your local Health Board. Each board will provide a contact point.

Moving forward:

We will continue to monitor this and all of our efforts to ensure PPE is reaching all areas of Scotland’s health and social care. I am confident that through partnership working across Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (this includes regular meetings with representatives from Primary Care Clinical Leads in Scotland), we will continue to do everything possible to address concerns or issues. Therefore, please do keep feeding back via local mechanisms in your area.

Thank you for all that you do.

Gordon Beattie
Director of National Procurement
NHS National Services Scotland.

Paul Cushley
Director of Dentistry
NHS National Services Scotland.