Illume — 'Your brighter path to dental care'

Well it had to happen I suppose. Aspects with us again over the weekend dismantling the old Reception area and Client Bathroom and a drill went through the mains water pipe leaving us with no water and dust everywhere.

Some emergency plumbing required early on Monday morning and an early start to prepare for a ‘normal’ day in the Treatment Rooms.

The Reception waiting area and Client Bathroom are now out of action for two to three weeks whilst the new ceilings go in, along with replastering, new lighting, air conditioning and refurbishment of the Client Bathroom facility to make it disabled compliant.

We now have our waiting chairs temporarily in the new Xray room and down the corridor and we will have a temporary toilet facility. With the inevitable noise of drills, routers etc it all makes for not the easiest working environment and the team and clients alike have all coped really well.

‘Our temporary waiting area – a little like a train carriage at the moment!’

‘Reception Waiting Area taking on its new look’

Refurbishment is continuing at a pace with the decorators beginning the painting of the first phase.

By the end of the week we will be moving our temporary reception desk to a new location – this time to what will eventually be our Private Consultation Room.

This is so that Aspects can begin work on the Reception area, new Office and the improvements to the Client’s Bathroom and it is this phase that is likely to prove the most challenging as we aim to keep working throughout.

We once again request your patience please as space will be limited during this time and we will have to create client waiting areas in the new x-ray room and even the corridor. Not ideal but we are committed to continue normal service as far as possible!

 One last look at Reception as it is now before it changes for ever!

Q: What’s all this building work for?

A: Simple – it’s for you!!

To deliver the best in modern dentistry we need to use our internal space differently and ask for your patience over the next few weeks while we invest in the practice to:

·       Create and equip a modern, compliant Local Decontamination Unit

·       Create a new Office/Telephony space for administration along with more privacy for telephone calls

·       Create a new Private Consultation Room – a non-clinical area for privacy when discussing treatment and finance

·       Create a new X-Ray Room because we have to move our current one to make space for our LDU

·       Create a new Reception Desk and new seating in the Reception Lounge

·       Modernise our Client Bathroom facility

·       Provide Air Cooling for your and our comfort

·       Improve our Team Room to accommodate our growing team

·       Modernise and redecorate the public spaces

Our aim is to keep our purpose-built practice just that – purpose-built, but for this century not the last one keeping Illume at the forefront of dentistry in Cheltenham -  ‘Your Brighter Path to Dental Care’

Well it’s under way after much planning and we are well into Phase 1, of 3, each phase covering different areas and requirements.

The first phase started nearly two weeks ago when our building contractors, Aspects, took over our old office space.

Working very hard over one weekend they have had to move and rewire the electrical installation to make room to create a new corridor, a new doorway from Reception along with a new x-ray room, all lead lined for safety of course, and our new Private Consultation Area.

Having no power over the weekend and moving all the telephone lines were not without its challenges but we were able to manage phone diverts to maintain our emergency response. Our biggest challenge was the lack of a phone line until the Monday afternoon but since Monday was a designated team training day with no scheduled clients we managed, mainly thanks to our excellent telecommunications company, Outsource Voice. I can highly recommend Keith Dunn’s team to anyone.

Anyone visiting Illume over the last 10 days will have noticed that ‘we have the builders in’.

This is our ‘temporary reception desk’ while our old desk is out of action and before our new reception area is unveiled.

After much planning we have now started our refurbishment work to bring the practice further up-to-date and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause during the various phases of the work and ask for your patience during the inevitable disruption as we reinvest in the future of Illume.

Here’s a brief explanation at this stage.

We are one of very few purpose-built dental practices in the area and although we remain very proud of it we have a challenge or two - it was purpose-built forty years ago!

Having adapted the old layout to ever-changing demands on it as dentistry has changed over that time we now want to make it purpose built for this century – not the last one!

New guidelines for cross-infection control and CQC registration have driven the main changes and this has created an ideal opportunity to update, upgrade and refresh much of the practice.

Watch this space for further explanation as work progresses.