Complaints Procedure

 We try to ensure that all of 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 any complaints courteously and efficiently so that they can be resolved as quickly as possible.

Our complaints procedure outlines how we will deal with any complaints.

 The person responsible for dealing with any complaints in the practice is Mr Harry Cheema, business development manager 

Complaints Made Verbally

If you wish to make a complaint over the phone or in person, we will listen to your complaint and offer to refer you to the complaints lead. 

If they are unavailable at the time, then the patient will be informed when they will be able to talk to the business development manager and arrangements will be made for this to happen. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on to the business development manager. 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. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days. 

Complaints Made via Email or Letter

Any letters or emails regarding a complaint will be immediately passed to the complaints lead. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days.

Investigation

We will contact you to discuss your complaint unless it can be resolved easily. Any complaints involving clinical care will be referred to the treating dentist unless you request this not to happen. 

We will then investigate your complaint and will aim to have a response for you within 10 working days. If it is not possible to resolve this within that timeframe, we will inform you and let you know when it is likely to be resolved.

Once we have made a decision regarding your complaint we will inform you by your preferred contact method.

It is possible that if a complaint regards clinical care or is complex, we may need to seek advice from our insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisors and, therefore, may need to share some of your information for this purpose.

Complaints to External Bodies

 We hope that, if you have a problem, you will make use of our practice complaints procedure.  We believe this will provide the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.  However, this does not affect your right to complain to an independent body, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.  

The CQC: The CQC don't get directly involved with complaints made to the practice. They do, however, encourage giving feedback to service providers.

To send feedback to the CQC please go to: https://www.cqc.org.uk/give-feedback-on-care

Telephone: 03000 616161 (Mon to Fri, 8.30am - 5.30pm Excluding Bank Holidays)

NHS: If you would rather not go directly to your practice, you can contact your local ICB, which is responsible for NHS dental services.

https://www.frimley.icb.nhs.uk/

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

The Dental Complaints Service, The Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Road, Croydon, Greater London, CR9 2ER. Telephone: 08456 120 540 www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk

The General Dental Council, 37 Wimpole Street, London. W1N 8DQ. Telephone: 0845 222 4141, the dentists’ regulatory body for complaints about professional misconduct