Dear patients,
It has always been our top priority to ensure a safe practice where you feel secure and supported. Hence we naturally felt it as our duty to comply with the Government’s and the British Acupuncture Council’s guidance on making our premises and services Covid-19 secure.
1. Covid-19 symptoms
If you or someone you live with develops symptoms of Covid-19 by the time of the appointment, please do not come in. However please do contact us.
We also ask you to contact us in case you develop symptoms of Covid-19 within 48 hour from the time of your appointment.
2. Before your appointment
We ask all of our clients to read and sign a short consent form produced by the BAcC. The aim of this document is to screen potential carriers of Covid-19 as well as maintaining safety for people of increased vulnerability. Similar to other patient forms, it may be completed online, printed signed and scanned or completed on site.
We also ask you to please bring your own towels and blanket as we will be only able to provide limited number of towels in order to minimize the excessive laundry.
3. Initial remote sessions
Due to Covid-19 measures we have implemented a complementary 30 minutes online consultation (Skype, FB, Zoom) which will precede your first in-person appointment at our clinic. This will ensure your safety while allowing us to ‘meet’ without face masks. This way we we can also keep our face-to-face sessions to 50 minutes.
You may also be asked to take photos of your tongue (for diagnostic reasons) and send them to your therapist.
4. Enhanced cleaning procedure
We ensure frequent cleaning (in-between clients) of surfaces, areas and equipment that may have been in contact with patients -e.g. couch, chair, table, door handles.
We use potent anti-viral and anti-bacterial products while we also open windows and doors to allow free airflow between appointments.
The clinic also provides daily deep-cleaning for further enhancement of health and safety.
5. Social distancing
We ask all visitors to the clinic to maintain a two metre distance from all other people in the clinic at all times. The only exception to this is with your practitioner for the duration of your appointment.
6. When entering the clinic
We have staggered our appointments with 10 minutes in-between patients so that all visitors to the clinic can remain socially distanced. This also allows us to thoroughly clean the treatment room before your arrival.
We would be grateful if you could enter the clinic not sooner than 5 minutes before the time of your appointment. When you arrive, please take a seat in the waiting room but make sure you keep two metre distance from all other clinic visitors at all times. For this reason we have opened up a second waiting area on the first floor.
7. Handwashing
Please wash your hands immediately upon entering the clinic. The nearest washing area is just on the left side, approximately 2 metres from the entrance. Please also wash your hands before leaving the clinic.
In case the washroom is engaged please use the hand sanitizer which you will find on the left hand sight right after entering the clinic.
8. Personal Protective Equipment
For your safety we will be wearing a water-resistant surgical face mask throughout the whole of your session (and a face visor whenever necessary).
We also ensure the frequent use of hand sanitizer and hand washing -on our side-, in order to avoid the necessity of wearing gloves.
We ask our patients to also wear ordinary surgical masks to the clinic. Please bring your own, however you may ask your practitioner to provide one for you upon entering the clinic.
If you need to sneeze or cough while in the clinic, please do so into a disposable tissue and throw it away immediately. Please wash your hands immediately after doing so.
9. Payments:
We encourage our patients to pay by bank transfer prior to the appointment, in order to minimize physical contact.
We understand that these policies might seem confusing or over-protective. However it is in the best interest of your health and for the whole community itself. Thank you for understanding.