Caring for You – Our Policy for Dealing with Your Complaint

If you ever feel we haven’t met your expectations with you care please do not hesitate to get in touch as in this practice we take complaints very seriously indeed and try to ensure that all patients are pleased with their experience of our service. When patients complain, they are dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. This procedure is based on these objectives. And we follow these six core principles:

  1. All of your feedback is important to us.

  2. We want to make it easy for you to raise a concern or complain, if you need to.

  3. We follow a complaints procedure and keep you informed.

  4. We will try to answer all your questions and any concerns you raise.

  5. We want you to have a positive experience of making a complaint.

  6. Your feedback helps us to improve our service.

For more information on the core principles please visit https://dcs.gdc-uk.org

Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from every mistake that we make and we respond to patients’ concerns in a caring and sensitive way.

1.         The person responsible for dealing with any complaint about the service we provide is the Practice Manager.

2.         If a patient complains on the telephone or at the reception desk, we will listen to his or her complaint and offer to refer him or her to the Practice Manager immediately.

If the Practice Manager is not available at the time, then the patient will be told when he or she will be able to talk to the dentist and arrangements will be made for this to happen. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on. If we cannot arrange this within a reasonable period or if the patient does not wish to wait to discuss the matter, arrangements will be made for someone else to deal with it.

3.       If the patient complains in writing the letter will be passed on immediately to the Practice Manager.

4.       If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges it will normally be referred to the dentist, unless the patient does not want this to happen.

5.       We will acknowledge the patient’s complaint in writing or by email and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within two working days. We will seek to investigate the complaint within ten working days of the complaint being received to give an explanation of the circumstances which led to the complaint. If the patient does not wish to meet us, then we will attempt to talk to him or her on the telephone, unless only written correspondence is appropriate. If we are unable to investigate the complaint within ten working days we will notify the patient, giving reasons for the delay and a likely period within which the investigation will be completed.

6.       We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing to the patient immediately after completing our investigation.

7.       Proper and comprehensive reports are kept of any complaint received.

8.       If patients are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be made to the Dental Complaints Service via Telephone: 020 8253 0800 (Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm) Online: Web Enquiry Form Write to: Dental Complaints Service, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ