I urge the public and dental clinicians to please get behind this petition. The reason behind it is to showcase the number of people in the UK who agree that to be able to control the imminent antibody testing and allow it to remain organised, increasing the ability for data collection to be used to track and assess the spread of Covid-19, we should be using the otherwise redundant dental centres and dental teams.

With dental centres across the UK having closed their doors or only remaining open to treat emergency cases, an abundance of medically trained dental professionals have also been made temporarily redundant.

Instead of these medics being deemed out of action, shouldn't it mean that here lies an opportunity to utilise these medically trained teams and clinical facilities in the fight against the Coronavirus (Covid-19) that grips the UK?

Dental teams are very well placed to carry out Covid-19 testing along with the ability to keep our patients safe and prevent spread of the virus, all while doing it in an environment they are familiar with as medical and clinically clean.

We work with PPE, we are expertly trained in cross infection control and we can help take the data required to analyse the spread of the virus with each test taken. Working to an appointment system, we can also ensure testing is kept calm and organised and all data logged and made accessible for the Government. We have a chance for individuals in the community to be tested in an organised manner by appointment to ensure everyone gets tested and results are collated. It makes sense that future antibody testing needs to be done alongside this data collection so we can assess who has been asymptomatic or not and look at the pattern of spread (as suggested by the Government). 

We can help record this data and make it accessible, something that I believe would be lacking if left for people to do individually. (It has been previously announced that self testing kits may be made available on Amazon or Boots)!

I fully appreciate and understand why some dental centres or clinicians may not want to help us push this petition forwards. You may be vulnerable or high risk; you may be deployed in another role helping in other ways; or your time may be utilised for other worthwhile things important to you.

But there will be many of us who want to use our medical skills and knowledge to do our bit to help free up NHS key workers who may otherwise be tasked to do said testing. There will be many who want to use their otherwise redundant dental centres for something that will benefit the greater good. There is scope here for us to be used, medical professionals with transferable skills that can be re-deployed in this way to help in this fight, as well as others.

To those in Government and who are in charge of these decisions – please, do not leave medically trained professionals redundant when we are willing to help in these difficult times. We are qualified and well placed to manage this for you.