Practice Policies

Missed / Cancellation Appointment Policy

Our goal is to provide quality dental care to all our patients in a timely manner. No-shows, late arrivals, and cancellations inconvenience not only our providers, but our other patients as well. To keep our prices to a reasonable level it is necessary for the fixed running costs of the practice to be met. This requires the dental surgeons and hygienist to be operating in their surgeries to maximum efficiency. For this reason we have in place a Fail to Attend policy and a Short Notice Cancellations policy.

Appointment Cancellation

When you book your appointment, you are holding a space on our calendar that is no longer available to the other patients. In order to be respectful of your fellow patients, please call the practice as soon as you know you will not be able to make your appointment.

If cancellation is necessary, we require that you call at least 48 hours in advance. Appointments are in high demand, and your advanced notice will allow another patient access to that appointment time.

If you need to cancel your appointment, please call us on 01885 482 855 between the hours of 9am – 1pm and 2pm – 5pm, working days only.

Unfortunately, we will not accept cancellation via email.

Fail to Attend/ Short Notice Cancellations

Fail to Attend or Short Notice Cancellation is surgery time lost and could have been filled by other attending patients who could have had their treatment sooner.

If a cancellation is made within the same treatment session as the patient is due, this will be deemed as a Fail to Attend.

A Fail to Attend is when a patient misses an appointment without cancelling.

We reserve the right to refuse further treatment to patients who fail to attend two of their appointments. This would potentially mean their removal from the practice registration list.

A cancellation is considered short when the appointment is cancelled within 48 hours of the appointed time.

In either case, we reserve the right to charge for every £1 per 1 minute of unfilled appointment time.

The patient may not be seen for a further appointment until any outstanding fees have been paid.

Denplan patients will have the option to pay the cancellation fee of £1 per minute or have the missed appointment deducted from their annual quota.

attendance Policy

Patients are obliged to contact the practice at least once every 2 years for an exam to maintain their registration within the practice.
Patients who fail to attend appointments twice within 3 years may be removed from the practice list.
Two late cancellations (less than 48 hours) are recognised as one missed appointment.
A reminder is sent only out of courtesy when the appointment is scheduled. Not receiving a reminder is not a justification for a missed appointment.
A £30 deposit is required to secure an appointment from patients who haven’t attended regularly or are new to the practice.

Complaints Policy

We try to ensure that all our patients are pleased with their experience of our services. We welcome feedback from patients and take any complaints seriously. We aim to deal with complaints courteously and efficiently so they can be resolved as quickly as possible.

How to Complain

We hope that most issues can be resolved easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your issues cannot be sorted out this way and you wish to make a complaint, you can do so verbally by speaking to one of our team members, who will direct you to our complaints lead, or you can write to us by letter or email.

What We Shall Do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to investigate your complaint within 14 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the people involved. When we investigate your complaint, we shall aim to:

Find out what happened and what went wrong
Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
Make sure you receive an apology where this is appropriate
Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again
Should a patient make a complaint or claim, we may need to provide information about the patient, and treatment they have received, to insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisers.

Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of clinical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we must know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of physical and mental illness) of providing this.

Time Limits for Opening Complaints

Complaints should be made within 12 months of the incident or when the complainant first discovered the problem.

Further Information

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. If you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us, or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation, please contact:

Dental Complaints Service
37 Wimpole Street
London
W1G 8DQ
Telephone: 020 8253 0800 (Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm)

General Dental Council
37 Wimpole Street
London W1G 8DQ
Email: www.gdc-uk.org
Telephone: 0845 222 4141 or 020 7887 3800