Following the advice of our professional body and regulator regarding covid 19, we can confirm that Wallington Osteopathic Practice is now OPEN.
The Chair of the Institute of Osteopathy has taken advice from health professionals and commissioners within the NHS. Osteopaths who are willing and well should consider remaining available to treat acute or urgent patients. This will help to reduce the burden on the NHS, GP practices and musculoskeletal services as their staff are redeployed into hospitals.
Osteopaths have been defined as ‘essential health workers’ and necessary osteopathy appointments are a ‘medical’ reason for leaving your house. The Chair of the Institute of Osteopathy’s guidance further states that: “We recommend that if a patient is able to delay their treatment because it is not urgent or essential, then it would be better to avoid the risk of contact. Only urgent or necessary treatments should be given. This includes patients with chronic conditions, for example, severe scoliosis, where stopping treatment will lead to more intractable health problems”
We have spent time considering the various risks involved, to ourselves, our patients and the households of our patients and osteopaths. With this in mind, whilst we are open, the following applies:
If you would like to book an appointment
· No new or existing patient will be able to book an appointment without speaking to an osteopath first. To help us manage this, we prefer to be contacted by email at clinic@wallingtonosteopaths.com If you wish to book an appointment, email us a brief summary of your reason to attend and a contact telephone number so that we can call you back.
· We will give preference to appointments for “key-workers” and individuals who need go to work in order to support the distribution of goods and services.
If you are attending an appointment
· You must read our up-to-date hygiene policy (below).
· You should arrive on time and only ring the bell to come into the building at the time of your appointment, to enable distancing from other patients.
· If possible you should use your elbow to ring the bell, though we are regularly sanitising this.
Only our osteopaths who are not living in a household with vulnerable persons will be available to work in our clinic. They will all travel to the clinic without using public transport. All our osteopaths will also follow the 7 or 14 day exclusion if they, or a member of their household, are symptomatic. This means that even if we offer you an appointment, we may need to rearrange it if your osteopath is unable to come in. If your osteopath becomes unavailable, we will try to offer you an appointment as soon as possible with another osteopath.
If you have an appointment confirmed to attend, it will be scheduled at a time to minimise the likelihood of them meeting another patient in the building. Please arrive on time. Your osteopath will end the consultation promptly in order to assist you to leave the clinic before the next patient arrives, and to enable us to sanitise the clinic.
We know that we normally see many patients whose needs might not be ‘acute or urgent’. If this applies, please do get in touch. We are more than happy to telephone you, discuss your symptoms and offer advice. Obviously the help we can offer will be limited, because we cannot see you in person or provide hands on treatment. We would not expect to charge someone for advice given on the phone.
To discuss making an appointment, please send us an email with brief details of your symptoms and a contact number and we will call you back: clinic@wallingtonosteopaths.com
Our Hygiene Policy
We are reviewing our practice hygiene policy daily based on the most recent Public Health England advice, so this may change.
We are following the sensible recommendations made by the Healthcare Regulators to help limit person-to-person transmission in healthcare settings. This is particularly important because our patients include a small number of potentially vulnerable adults and children. With the precautions we have put in place, we believe there is low risk of transmission within the clinic and you may continue to attend your appointment unless any of the following applies to you.
When not to attend
If you been advised to self isolate for any reason.
Whilst many things can cause these symptoms, if you develop a fever, a new cough or shortness of breath prior to your appointment or you have returned from anywhere abroad within the last 14 days.
Current advice is to stay at home for 7 days if you have a high fever or a new continuous cough. If someone you live with has symptoms you need to stay at home for 14 days from the day the first person in the home started showing symptoms. If you develop symptoms, please don’t go to your GP, pharmacy or hospital. A useful link for deciding what to do or if you are worried is: https://111.nhs.uk/covid-19 Only call 111 if you cannot get help online.
There will of course be no late cancellation fee for anyone not attending for this reason but we request that you do let us know and are grateful for as much notice as possible.
What we are doing
As always, we will continue to wash our hands before and after seeing each patient.
In addition, we will be regularly disinfecting surfaces and ‘often touched areas’ such as door handles. Treatment tables will be disinfected between each patient and we have removed the towelling covers and seat cushions. We have a wipe down pillows or plastic covers on them for ease of cleaning between patients. We have removed books, magazines and toys from the waiting and treatment rooms.
Osteopaths are wearing vinyl gloves and face masks which are changed with every patient. Plastic aprons will be worn on a risk assessment basis. We can offer facemasks to patients if they wish to wear one.
This is entirely for your protection.
Although we are taking all forms of payment, card payments are preferable.
If any of our osteopaths have any of the above symptoms or feelings of unwellness that could indicate coronavirus, they won’t be working. Should this affect your appointment we will let you know as soon a possible and try to provide the option to see a colleague during their absence should you wish.
What you can do
We are requiring all visitors to the practice to wash their hands or use the provided hand sanitiser on arrival as part of the national drive to limit transmission. Please don’t ring the bell until the time of your appointment or bring anyone else with you who doesn’t need to be there. Allowance will be made for just one parent per child, if you are bringing a child for treatment. At this time we request that you do not bring siblings or children who are not being treated.
If you are bringing a baby please bring a clean muslin cloth for them to lie on whilst they are being examined.
You may wish to bring your own toys and books for children attending. If you are coming with a baby or child who requires a nappy, we request that you do not change the nappy in the building unless absolutely necessary.
Thank you for your assistance with helping us to limit the spread of the illness and enable those who need our assistance to attend. If you have any questions or concerns please just send us an email: clinic@wallingtonosteopaths.com