DR Radhika Ladwa has urged Ealing residents not to put off their dental appointments during the third national lockdown.

During the first national lockdown dentists were closed and didn't reopen again until June.

Since then however, they have remained open, both during the second lockdown in November and currently during the third lockdown as well.

Dr Ladwa who used to work in the finance sector in the City, decided to retrain as a dentist eight years ago and for the past three years has worked at her father's dental practice in Ealing Broadway – Ladwa Dental Practice.

The long-term plan is for her to take over the practice, which her father - Dr Russ Ladwa - has been running since 1985.

She told Nub News: "It's understandable that patients, especially those that are in the high-risk category put off their routine appointments because they don't want to leave their homes.

"At the same time we urge them to come in and have their check-ups, because the consequences for their teeth can get much worse and a simple routine procedure can become very complicated.

"All dental practices have certain protective features in place in order to halt the spread of the virus, for example, patients have to fill out screening questions, temperature checks take place, hand sanitising stations are located throughout the surgery and we even installed a new ventilation fan."

Dentists - just like most businesses - haven't escaped the economic hit from the pandemic, with the spacing out between patients becoming longer in order to clean the rooms thoroughly.

Dr Ladwa added: "We have to make sure we do a thorough clean after every patient and we need to wait for the fan to ventilate, which is why we see less patients every day.

"We don't want to sacrifice the time we spend with our patients in order to fit more appointments during the day, which means we've lost about half of our business unfortunately.

"But our patients' safety is our number one priority and hopefully our strict safety procedures encourage those patients that have been putting off their check-ups to come in and see us."