Dentists help relieve NHS pressure through Covid-19 redeployment

Professor Shakeel Shahdad, consultant in restorative dentistry at Barts Health NHS Trust and QMUL Institute of Dentistry, said his department has been redeployed following lockdown to help in the maternity delivery unit, the critical care unit, the emergency department, the Urgent Treatment Centre and with staff testing for COVID-19, in a bid to relieve NHS pressure. He said: “As part of the large NHS Trust, we knew early on the redeployment was on the cards. Currently, our dental hospital space is being used for chemotherapy. This has allowed for space being made available in the main hospital for COVID patients.”

Prof Shahdad is also co-ordinating a project with the School of Engineering and Materials Science and Queen Mary’s Blizzard Institute amongst others to produce newly designed visors for frontline NHS staff that support acetate sheets to provide full face and neck protection. Halma are also assisting the team with injection moulding the visor to increase production. Professor Shahdad said: “I felt there was a need for better face protection when we were being “fit tested” in the dental hospital. The project started as a small idea with one of my ex-scholars help design something based in India. I very quickly had colleagues from QMUL departments and Keratify, a QMUL spinoff company, come on board to work through multiple variations in design and concept. Our idea was to work on a technically challenging and difficult concept, but the manufactured product for end-user had to be very user friendly, easy yet adjustable and reusable. Our Visors are widely used in CCU, ED, maternity and UTC. There are occasional shortages of gowns, this bank holiday weekend I had to appeal through social media for some gowns to be donated to our CCU. I was overwhelmed by the response and managed to collect and deliver 750 surgical gowns, plus hundreds of hats and masks to the frontline staff in CCU. NHS Hero Support donated 500 of those gowns.”