Is a dental receptionist a key worker?

[user246854]

Just that do they qualify for school place?

Well if dentists are keyworkers then they need people to man the desks and organise appointments and running of the surgery. So yes, I'd say so.

Taken from gov website:

If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision:

It goes on to list the different sectors. I think people are reading the list of jobs / sectors without putting it into context.

Depends if they are actually required to keep the dental practice operational. It's not enough to fall within a category of key worker, your continued presence at your place of work has to be a necessity. But yes, support staff will be key workers too, it's not just medically qualified staff.

Yes, the BDA have clarified this with the government department dealing with this. This may change if Dental surgery’s are closed. But staff and support staff may be deployed to support the NHS elsewhere.

If they close dental surgeries it will increase pressure on GPs and A&E who would have to deal with dental emergencies. So they are effectively supporting COVID-19 response.

They'll have to close some dentists. I'd say there will be a hub dentist where you will be able to get emergency treatment.

Technically yes.

I've seen loads of "I'm a key worker, so back to school kids" posts on FB, of people taking the absolute fucking piss though. Half have a partner who is a SAHP or who, like my DH (in IT), is able to WFH. Its not going to be easy and we'll have to juggle our hours a bit and try to ensure the kids don't get too noisy while he's on a conference call but its doable, even in our tiny house.

I know a SAHM (who has a couple of rental properties) has filled out the key worker form wanting a place. Her husband, who always WFH anyway and frequently fields the kids, has an IT role for a company who possibly supports banking infrastructure.. She might need school to babysit her kids while she "goes to sort out a tenant".

Practically anyone can squeeze themselves into keyworker catagory somehow. I work in a GP surgery and come into contact with patients all the time, as well as having to clean the isolation room. I'm pretty much guaranteed to get it at some point so don't want my children to spread it around my own local community. The clinical admin part of my role could be done from home if only the IT infrastructure were able to support it at the moment, but there are times when I'm on reception fielding patients, chaperoning or donning scrubs for the occasional HCA duties.

Don't get me started on the precious secondary parents who can't possibly leave their little darlings at home for a bit while they work, or are griping and moaning because there won't be a school bus to take them in.

If you have a partner who can possibly WFH, or non elderly, healthy relatives nearby, I'd seriously consider sorting something out. The letters state quite clearly that the arrangements are a last resort.

Good luck!

hopeishere you would think so but the still functioning, jobsworth commissioning part of the NHS are still bean counting and advice is not to do certain treatments ( only received yesterday) but we are still expected to meet our targets for this year which ends 32/03/20. For many practices attendance has dropped off so will be facing breach notices and clawback through no fault of their own.
They have refused to accept force mageure for this year by creating new rules to avoid it. Unfortunately they will not be able to avoid it from start of April.
However there is a possibility that we will be redeployed when it really gets bad.