Bexhill Chiropody Centre

Update 29th May.

We continue to follow our professional associations guidelines but we are now taking bookings based on need from Monday 8th June.

Emergency - severe pain, diabetes, vascular disease etc are high risk and will be seen as soon as possible - most in this category may need onward referral.

Urgent - Those with foot problems causing difficulty walking and balance for that might get worse and may need emergency treatment if left.

Routine - general nail and hard skin, msk problems only to be seen as guidelines permit.

Covid-19 Protocol Revised 25th May 2020

At time of writing, the government guidelines on Covid 19 social distancing are that we should avoid non-essential contact. The challenge for podiatry/chiropody is that it runs the range of risk from patients who could easily self-care or manage for 6-12 weeks, through to those for whom losing access to treatment would represent a more significant medical risk than Covid.

We are committed to providing the best for our patients in a rapidly evolving and complex situation. As such, we are taking the following measures as of Monday 11th May and until the lock-down progresses to level 1 in the UK Government recovery strategy; and may be reintroduced if necessary.

We are now taking provisional appointments for June but these may be postponed if Covid threat increases. Hastings and Rother currently have very low infections rates but this could change now that visitors have started returning to our town. This will affect our risk assessment for patients and ourselves.

Providing treatment is a risk for the patient and clinician

All patients and any others at their place of residence must be free of Covid symptoms
        for at least 14 days.

We will triage all patients and note this in patient records.
  

 Emergency RED - patients to be seen as soon as possible or referred as necessary

 Urgent Amber - patients who need treatment to be seen in line with CoP or SMAE Guidelines. Clinicians will use due diligence to ensure treatment is needed.

 Routine Green - care to be deferred/postponed until Government Stage 2 is declared hopefully from July. Routine care may be escalated to urgent at the discretion of the Clinician attending the patient.

 Clinicians will screen/triage their own patients by telephone 24 hours before all appointments to assess the patient’s need and risk. This must be noted in patient’s records prior to treatment.

 Appointments will be made one per hour. This allows a “cool-down time” so that it is unlikely that more than one patient is in the waiting area at any one time.

 Appointment times to be alternated half hourly between clinicians to reduce the chance of contact crossover

 Unless necessary, patients are to attend their appointments on their own.

 Patients should wait in their car until near their appointment time.

 Patients on arrival must ring the white bell and wait to be invited in.

 Full clean down of the room will be undertaken between each patient, including chair, armrests, equipment, door handles computer keyboards etc.

 Clinic rooms where possible will have open windows to encourage air flow.

 Masks and visors to be worn by clinicians to protect patients along with gloves aprons this will be normal PPE.

 Masks will be provided for patients to wear unless the patient is unable to wear a mask for medical reasons.

 Alcohol hand rub will to be provided to patients on entry to and exit from the building.

 Waiting room should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Patients are to be met at the door by staff and taken directly to the clinic room.

 Payment should be by card in preference to cash; contactless preferred payment whenever possible.

 Patients are advised that we will take every precaution to prevent cross-infection, but a risk however does still remain.

 When visiting patients at home a double glove technique will be used; only removing the primary glove after leaving the patients home.

 Outer clothing will be changed and washed on arrival at home.

APPOINTMENTS during Covid 19 outbreak