Failure to Attend/Short Notice Cancellation of NHS Appointments Policy
If you are unable to keep an appointment, you must let us know as soon as possible.
If 2 or more appointments are missed or cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice within an 12 month period, we may remove you from the NHS list, and would no longer be able to provide NHS treatment for you.
The NHS does not currently allow a missed appointment fee to be taken.
Failure to Attend/Short Notice Cancellation of Private Appointments Policy
If you are a private patient of the practice, and you are unable to keep an appointment, you must let us know as soon as possible.
The practice may make a charge for an appointment that was missed or cancelled without 24 hours’ notice. The current charge is £30 per appointment.
Open Course of NHS Treatment Policy
If you do not complete a course of treatment with the practice, after a period of 4 weeks from your last appointment and if no further appointments are scheduled, the course of treatment will be deemed to be complete.
Once a course of treatment is deemed to be complete it is submitted to the NHS
If you decide at a later date you would like to return for treatment a new examination will be required prior to treatment and further NHS fees may be applicable.
Open Course of Private Treatment Policy
Quotations for Private treatment are valid for 6 weeks after assessment.
If you do not book for treatment within this time frame the dentist may need to review your treatment plan.
Abuse or Aggressive Behaviour Policy
We believe our staff have the right to feel safe at work and therefore we have a ZERO Tolerance policy on abusive or aggressive behaviour against our staff members.
Persons who shout, swear or threaten our staff members will be asked to leave the premises and will be unable to book further appointments.
Complaints Policy
Montgomery Dental Care takes complaints very seriously and tries to ensure that all patients are pleased with their experience of our service. When patients complain, they are dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible.
This procedure is based on the following objective:
Montgomery Dental Care aims to react in the way in which we would want our complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from our every mistake that we make and we respond to patients’ concerns in a caring and sensitive way.”
The Procedure
- The person responsible for dealing with any complaint about the service we provide is the Practice Manager.
- If a patient complains on the telephone or at the reception desk, we will listen to their complaint and offer to refer them to the Practice Manager immediately. If the Practice Manager is not available at the time, then the patient will be told when they will be able to talk to the dentist and arrangements will be made for this to happen. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on. 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 handle the complaint.
- If the complaint is in writing the letter will be passed on immediately to the Practice Manager.
- If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges it will normally be referred to the dentist who undertook the treatment.
- We will acknowledge the patients complaint in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within two working days. We will seek to investigate the complaint within fourteen days of the complaint being received to give an explanation of the circumstances which led to the complaint. If we are unable to investigate the complaint within fourteen days we will notify the patient, giving reason for the delay and a likely period within which the investigation will be completed.
- We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing to the patient immediately after completing our investigation.
- Proper and comprehensive reports are kept of any complaint received.
If patients are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be referred to:
NHS – NHS England, South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, Oak House, Moorhead Way, Bramley, Rotherham S66 1YY
- Private – The Dental Complaints Service, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon, Greater London, CRO 6BA. 08456 120 540 www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk
