Complaints Procedure Information for Patients

If you have a complaint about the service or treatment you have received from the dentists or staff working in this practice, please let us know.  We operate a Practice complaints procedure which adheres to national guidelines.

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 dealt with in this way and you wish to make a formal complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible – ideally, within a matter of days or at most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened most easily.  If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

  • within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or
  • within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints about the treatment you received should ideally be made to the dentist who normally sees you.  Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with either Mark or Carolyn Chrimes (who are also our Practice Complaints Co-ordinators)  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 help if you are as clear as possible about your complaint.

What we shall do:

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and aim to have investigated your complaint within 10 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 those involved to try to resolve the situation.

In investigating your complaint we shall aim to:

  • Find out what happened and what went wrong
  • Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned (if you wish)
  • Ensure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate
  • Identify what we can do to rectify the problem and to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again

Making a complaint on behalf of someone else

Please note that we adhere strictly to the rules of confidentiality.  If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so.  We therefore require a signed letter from the person concerned stating that they give their consent for a named person to make a complaint on their behalf. The only exceptions to this are if the person concerned is incapable of providing this because of physical or mental illness or are a child under 16 years.

Seeking advice or complaining to external bodies:

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our Practice Complaints Procedure since we  believe this will best resolve your problem and give us an opportunity to improve our practice.  However, this does not affect your right to complain to the Dental Complaints Service or similar, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

Denplan Patients may wish to contact:

  • Denplan’s Complaints Handling Department

Telephone: 0800 169 7220.

E-mail: customerrelations@denplan.co.uk

Alternatively, you may wish to contact:

  • Dental Complaints Service

Stephenson House
2 Cherry Orchard Rd
Croydon
CR0 6BA
Tel. 020 8253 0800
E-mail:  info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk

  • Care Quality Commission

Healthcare Team
Citygate – Gallowgate
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 4PA
E-mail: info@cqc.org.uk
Website: www.cwc.org.uk

  • General Dental Council

37 Wimpole Street
London
W1M 8DQ
Tel. 020 7887 3800
E-mail:  Complaints@gdc-uk.org