On the 5th of November, new Covid-19 restrictions came into place in England, which many are referring to as “Lockdown 2.0”. Clinics are able to remain open to provide health care during this period.
Are we open?
The number one question, from us and you from the minute it was announced that Boris was going to be on TV that Saturday….well, after “Is he going to make Strictly late?!”
We’re pleased to say that we are open to provide health care, but as with the previous lockdown, we aren’t “business as usual”.
So what’s different?
For the duration of lockdown 2.0, Boris was clear that health care should continue to operate, however we aren’t able to provide any cosmetic or holistic treatments.
That means that if you have a cosmetic add on to your health care treatment, such as a gel polish, or have a massage add on, we will be in touch to postpone these treatments.
Lockdown 2.0 is proposed to end on the 2nd of December, at which point the government intends to return us to previous system of tiered restrictions.
Should Nottinghamshire return to the previous Tier 3+ restrictions, we will remain unable to provide cosmetic and holistic treatments until such a time as we return to Tier 2.
Should I keep my appointment?
Boris was clear that you should continue to access health care if you need to.
However, for those of you who are clinically vulnerable, or clinically extremely vulnerable, it is important that you consider whether attending your appointment is essential to your health.
The government had provided specific advice about staying safe if you are clinically extremely vulnerable, which is available at gov.uk.
If you are clinically extremely vulnerable, it would be sensible to postpone your appointment until the community rate of infection drops, so long as doing so doesn’t put you at risk.
We’ll call you the weekend before your appointment to have this conversation with you. If you are unsure whether you are clinically extremely vulnerable, or if you can postpone your appointment without risking your health, let us know and we can help you make this decision based on the risk assessments we did during the previous lockdown.
Why is it different to the last lockdown?
There are a few reasons why this lockdown is different for us.
Firstly, we know much more about the virus. We now know more about how people become infected, who is most at risk and how best to keep you safe.
We now have tried and tested procedures in place to make sure that you are as safe as possible when you attend clinic.
In March, PPE was almost impossible to source in private practice and without PPE we couldn’t keep you or ourselves safe.
While there are still some short periods where it can be difficult to get certain things, access to PPE is much better and we now have a good level of confidence that our suppliers can maintain access.
We have a good level of PPE in stock, including type IIR medical grade, surgical masks for our clients.
Thirdly, we have now seen first hand how your feet responded to the first lockdown. Our risk assessments in the first lockdown were based on our clinical judgement of what we thought would be the risk to you of not receiving treatment. Now we have seen the impact of not receiving treatment, or waiting longer for treatment than you would otherwise want to and can use this information to to influence our decision making.
Check out our blog post on the changes that we have made to ensure that we can keep you safe in clinic- Keeping you safe in the “new normal”.
If you’d like to talk through whether you should attend your appointment (or make an appointment) or what we are doing to keep you safe in clinic, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
