Complaints Policy

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentist or any of the staff working at this practice, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

How to complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out this way and you wish to make a complaint, we will respond to your complaint within three working days, enabling us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem

Complaints should be addressed to THE PRACTICE MANAGER – Complaints Manager, or THE PRACTICE MANAGER – Deputy Complaints Manager. You may ask for an appointment with her in order to discuss your concerns. They will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

What shall we do:

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to look into 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 look into 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

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 have to 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.

Complaining to the NHS England

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. This does not affect your right to approach the NHS England if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us, or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation

Should you wish to make a direct complaint to NHS England please contact:

NHS England Customer Support Centre,
PO Box 16738,
Redditch.
B97 9PT,
Telephone: 03003112233 (Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, excluding English Bank Holidays)
Email: [email protected]

Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank,
London
SW1P 4QP
Telephone: 0345 015 4033
Email: www.ombudsman.org.uk

Dental Complaints Service
Stephenson House
2 Cherry Orchard Road
Croydon
CR0 6BA
Telephone: 020 8253 0800
(Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm)

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