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Complaints Procedure

Code of Practice for Handling Patient Complaints

We want our service to meet your expectations. If you have a concern or complaint about any aspect of our service, we want to know what mistakes we made and identify how we can improve to ensure that we meet your expectations in future. Our aim is to learn from any feedback we receive and improve the service we provide to our patients.

We will deal with complaints courteously and promptly and aim to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

Making a Complaint

If you wish to make a complaint or simply let us know how we could have done better, please raise your concern with any member of the team:

  • By filling out our feedback form.
  • By telephone
  • By email
  • By letter
  • In person

Once feedback is received, we will try to deal with this promptly and informally in the first instance. However, should you feel you need to raise any feedback formally we will pass this onto the Complaints Manager.

The Complaints’ Manager usually works at the practice but may work offsite. We will endeavour to be available during our opening  times. You may find it more convenient to make an appointment with Complaints’ Manager to ensure that [she/he] can dedicate sufficient time to discuss your feedback.

If the matter requires a more immediate response, we will arrange for a senior member of the dental team to deal with it.

We acknowledge all complaints in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within 3 working days.

Investigating a Complaint

We will offer to discuss the complaint with you and ask how you would like to be informed of developments – by telephone, letters or e-mail or by face-to-face meetings. We will let you know how we will deal with your complaint and the likely time that the investigation will take to complete. If you do not wish to discuss the complaint further, we will still let you know the expected timescale for completing the investigation.

We will investigate your complaint promptly and update you at least every 10 working days, as far as reasonably practicable, to let you know how our investigation is progressing.

When we have completed our investigation, we will provide you with a full written report, unless you have told us you do not wish further communication. The report will explain how we considered the complaint, the conclusions we reached for each part of your complaint, details of any remedial action we have taken and whether further action is needed.

Records

We keep proper and comprehensive records of any complaints that we receive and the action we have taken following investigation.  We review these records regularly to ensure that we recognise our mistakes and take every opportunity to improve our service.

If You are not Satisfied

If your complaint was about your dental treatment and you are not satisfied with the result of our investigation, you can take up the matter with a relevant external organisation.

For complaints about NHS treatment:

ENGLAND:

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank London SW1P 4QP (0345 015 4033 or www.ombudsman.org.uk).

For complaints about private treatment:

Dental Complaints Service, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ

Tel: 020 8253 0800 or online at https://contactus.gdc-uk.org/dcs/Complaint/PrivatePatients

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