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.
If you wish to make a complaint or simply let us know how we could have done better, please contact Emma Christy, our Complaints Manager:
The Complaints’ Manager usually works at the practice on Monday to Thursday and will endeavour to be available during these times. You may find it more convenient to make an appointment with Complaints Manager to ensure that she can dedicate sufficient time to meet with you. If you contact the practice to make a complaint and the Complaints Manager is not available, then the complaint can be made to her deputy, Miss Victoria Calderbank.
She will ask you for brief details of your complaint so that the Complaints Manager can gather any useful information before contacting you. You will be given a copy of the notes made for the Complaints Manager. If your complaint is about your dental treatment or the fee charged, we will usually ask the dentist concerned to contact you, unless you do not want this.
We acknowledge all complaints in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, within 3 days.
We will offer to discuss the complaint with you and will ask how you would like to be kept 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, you will be asked if you agree with the estimated timeframe we have provided. We will deal with all complaints as promptly as possible, for more complex complaints, it may take longer to investigate but you will always be informed of this.
If you do not wish to discuss the complaint further, we will still let you know the expected timescale for completing the investigation.
If we think there will be a delay in providing a full response, we’ll let you know, and from there we’ll keep you updated every 10 working days of the progress of your complaint until we are able to provide our full response.
When we have completed our investigation, we will provide you with a full written report, unless you have told us that you do not wish for 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.
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 your complaint is about NHS Dental Care you may make your complaint either:
If you remain unhappy after we have responded to you, you may contact The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on 03450 154 033 www.ombudsman.org.uk.
If your complaint is about Private Dental Care, you make your complaint:
If you remain unhappy after we have responded to you, you may contact the Dental Complaints Service, 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8DQ 020 8253 0800
You can obtain advice and information from the ICA.
ICA is a free, independent and confidential service for people who want to make a complaint about any part of their NHS treatment or care in line with the NHS Complaints Regulations 2009.Advocates can support and guide through the NHS complaints process by providing information about options and rights in connection with NHS funded care and treatment.
If you are dissatisfied with our response and your agreement is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge, but you must do so within six months of the date of the final response or 8 week holding letter. Further information and contact details can be found on www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
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Thornley Park Dental is a trading name of Wood and Associates Dental Care Ltd.
