Complaints Policy | Hereford dentist | Broad Street Dental Surgery

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Complaints procedure

Practice complaints procedure – information to patients

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentists or any staff working in this practice, please let us know. We have a policy for handling complaints which outlines our practice complaints procedure. Our complaint system adheres to the national criteria.

How to complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted in this way and you wish to make a 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. 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
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 be made to the dentist who normally sees you. Alternatively, you made may ask for an appointment with Andrew Farr, the principal dentist to discuss your concerns. She will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure that your concerns are dealt promptly. It will help if you are as clear as possible about your complaint.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint (normally withing 3 working days) and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation, or offer a meeting with those involved.

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 would like this;
Ensure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate;
Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know you have permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable of providing this because of physical or mental illness or are a child under 16 years.

Complaining to the Dental Complaints Service

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will make use of our practice complaints procedure. We believe that 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 the dental complaints service, if you feel you can cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigations. If you wish further advice you should contact:

Dental Complaints Service

Stephenson House

2 Cherry Orchard Road

Croydon

CR0 6BA

Tel: 0845 120540

Email:info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk

For those registered with us on a Denplan Scheme can contact Denplan by telephone for advice:

Denplan Mediation Service Telephone 0800 1697220

You may also like to contact the following bodies for treatment advice:

General Dental Council

37 Wimpole Street