Jo's story

Joanna Johnson
Clinical Director, Dental Services

“Once COVID-19 hit, all routine dental services stopped. No dentists were open. And all teaching ceased.

We have 230 dental nurses. We were immediately able to release between half and two-thirds to work elsewhere in the Trust.

The biggest challenge was treating London’s dental emergencies. We organised the biggest dental emergency unit in the country. We saw 100 patients a day. It was all we could see with social distancing. Every bit of dentistry generates an aerosol.

The best thing was the gratitude of the patients. It was amazing. They thought no one would help them when they were kept awake with toothache in the night. A lot of places just handed out antibiotics. We thought that was just not right.

We had patients walking in at first, then we did telephone triage then we took emailed referrals. We phoned patients and tried to judge what they needed. It was a one stop shop – we were doing everything for patients in the same day. We are 23 floors up in the Guy’s tower so we had to think about how patients would get in the lifts.

We said let’s see what’s possible, let’s not put barriers up. We did aerosol generating procedures in the side rooms. We rotated staff around so they were not exposed to too much virus. Every dentist who stayed and every nurse had a really good attitude. If they didn’t have the skillset to run the emergency service we matched them to the requirement in ITU. They helped turn patients and provide oral care.

Everyone who went got a real buzz out of it. The team working was fantastic and they wanted to bring it back here.

They enjoyed doing 12 hour shifts. They preferred to work 3 long days rather than 5 normal ones. There is a group of consultant dentists doing the same. That change may stay – we have got a 6 month trial and it is going well. It was mooted before but it is a result of COVID-19.

Our biggest challenge is how to teach trainee dentists. We have 3 or 4 open plan clinics with 30 chairs. We are struggling to see how we can maintain this, how to mitigate the risks of drilling teeth in an open plan environment. The future of dental training is threatened. We are looking at different hand pieces and different ventilation systems.

I was working 12 hour days and it was tiring. But I am a positive person. I have been in post a year and it was a really good opportunity to meet the consultant dentists – we have about 100 – and for them to see the way I work. I also deputised for the deputy medical director so I got to know more about what it takes to run a hospital in a pandemic.

I am proud of the service we provided and the can-do attitude of the staff. I don’t think one dental patient ended up in A&E where they often go, this left them to concentrate on medical problems.

I am a paediatric dentist and I worked on bank holidays and if children turned up late. Did I worry about my own safety? No, not at all. There is no point in getting in that mindset.

I live in Putney and ran the 12kms to work. It is a good way to de-stress in the mornings. I dreamt about masks – the way the guidelines kept changing. Just when you thought you had it sorted it was not sorted. And they always changed on a Friday night.

I was training for an Ironman through COVID-19 and though the official event was cancelled I did it with a friend – a 3.8km swim, a 180km cycle and a marathon. I did it in 15 hours 30 minutes. It gave me a massive sense of satisfaction. COVID-19 hadn’t beaten my personal goal for the year.”