A HUSBAND and wife who took over a Gorse Hill dental practice are hopeful about the future after struggling through the pandemic.

Ruchi and Salil Sood have managed the surgery on Cricklade Road since February 2020 and had a difficult start to their new venture as coronavirus hit the UK, safety restrictions increased and many patients had to stay home.

Now that guidelines have eased, Ruchi is encouraging people to return so that her team can fix any dental issues which developed during the last 20 months and perform overdue check-ups.

She said: “Don’t be scared of going to the dentist - even if you don’t have any issues, you need to have regular check-ups to spot problems ASAP, it’s very safe.

“After two years, patients often need more work done because they may have had problems that had been left unaddressed, but they are prepared for that.

“We had a backlog of patients but that’s been cleared now, it’s great to see them again, and guidelines are easing so we’re almost going back to normal.

“People were a little scared to go out at first, especially the elderly who had been shielding, so we delivered antibiotics to their homes.

“The pandemic was a real struggle, it was scary in the beginning. Our costs went up because of the price of PPE and the extra medical waste which is expensive to dispose of.

“After lockdown, social distancing reduced the amount of people we could have in the waiting room, and after we saw a patient in one surgery we couldn’t use it for an hour, which had a big impact.

“Having two surgeries helped but one of them was not fully functional when we took it over and needed many changes. Repairs are expensive and time-consuming.

“There is one engineer in Cardiff who can fix one of our chairs but he was very busy and it took two months to get the part delivered because of Brexit.

The couple invested a lot of money into new machinery and equipment, as well as all the pandemic-related safety measures, and went paperless to reduce the practice’s carbon footprint.

They retained most of the patients from the old owner, who retired, and both Ruchi, the head dentist, and Salil, who sorts out the business side of things, are feeling good about the future of the practice.

Ruchi has 18 years of experience in dentistry and she recruited two nurses and a receptionist as part of the takeover.

The practice offers cosmetic procedures such as teeth-whitening, which the previous owner did not provide,

Ruchi added: “I’m really hopeful and optimistic, we have some more changes planned. This practice is like having a third child. I really look after it and the patients.”