Practice Policies & Dental Care

It is the aim of this practice to provide quality dental care to all of our patients and to use clinical time effectively.

To achieve this aim, we have an appointment management and cancellation policy and systems in place.

Management of Appointments

We invest in the latest technology, including modern telephone equipment and an email facility, to allow our patients to make or reschedule appointments easily. Our appointment system supports timely access to care and treatment, allowing patients to be able to access our services at a time that suits them, during our appointed working day hours. This minimises the length of time people have to wait.

Appointments can be made or rescheduled by calling our dedicated appointments Team on 01753 522091

Reminders

E-mail and text reminders are automatically generated by our computer system according to the appointments each patient has made. These will be sent to the patient 3 days before any appointment and patients are requested to inform the practice of any changes to their contact details. This service will operate for patients who have correctly completed their email address and mobile phone numbers. Patients do need to keep us informed of any changes to these details to ensure reminders are sent correctly.

This reminder service is provided as a gesture of ‘Goodwill’ only, however, in the event that this service fails, patients are reminded that the responsibility for ensuring they attend any/all appointments remain theirs. (The practice carries no responsibility).

Cancellation or delay of an appointment by the practice

We will only cancel or delay a patient’s appointment in unavoidable exceptional circumstances. In such cases, we will take the following steps:

• The patient will be contacted as soon as the practice is aware of the need to cancel or delay the appointment. We will explain the reason for the cancellation or delay
• At the time of contact, the patient will be offered a new appointment at the earliest time available
• If the patient is unable to commit to a new appointment during that contact, we will ask them to get in touch with us at a later time, when we will offer them a priority appointment

Cancellation of an appointment or missed appointment by a patient

Patients are requested to give at least 24 hours’ notice to cancel any dental appointment. Cancellations should be made by telephone by calling: 01753 522091, or via email. Appointments are easily rescheduled within the required time frame. Late cancellations and missed appointments represent a loss and cost to the practice, when other patients with urgent dental emergencies could have been seen in the time set aside for the patient who then failed to attend.

We all lead busy lives and we do understand that sometimes certain circumstances may be unavoidable, therefore patients who have missed an appointment for the first time, will be notified automatically via text/email/letter to advise that a missed appointment has been recorded on your records. We urge you to contact the practice at your earliest convenience, to inform us of the reason for this, and to re-schedule your appointment.

NHS England

We do not make a charge to any NHS patients for a late cancellation or missed appointment. However, we reserve the right to ask any patient to find another dental practice if they continue to miss appointments.

The demand for NHS Dental Care is extremely high, and we have to work within the NHS budgets, therefore all patients are advised that if more than two (2) NHS dental appointments are missed or cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice, we will not continue to offer those patient’s NHS treatment. You are notified that the provision for NHS dental care will no longer be offered, we will not continue with your treatment and you will need to seek the services of another NHS dental care provider.

Be advised that when we have reached our NHS patient capacity, we are unable to accept any patient seeking NHS treatment into our dental care. It is important that all patients seeking to retain their NHS Dental Care entitlement, ensure they attend our practice every six (6/12) months for a dental check-up/examination (or as advised by your Dentist), to keep your NHS entitlement active. Our system will automatically remove the NHS status for all patients who has not been seen for a dental check-up within the last 24-month period. If our NHS list is closed, you will not be offered any NHS Dental Care within the practice, you will need to seek the provision for your NHS Dental Care from another dental practice.

There is a fee for all private dental appointments that are missed or cancelled with less than 48 hours’ notice. The fee is based and calculated on the length of the appointment and can be found in the private fees list. Deposits are taken to secure all private dental appointments, failing to attend or to give us the appropriate notice may result in the broken appointment charge being taken from any monies paid on account. It is our aim to communicate with all patients after any missed appointment, to understand the reason for non-attendance and to inform them about any fee or decision about their NHS dental care. We understand that cancellations are sometimes unavoidable due to illness or emergencies and we will take into account all valid circumstances with no prior failed attendances.

Any appeals about missed or cancelled appointment decisions should be made in writing to the Practice Manager, Dolly Dandridge. The circumstances/reason will be considered, the Principal Dentist’s decision will be final.   

Under our NHS Contract we will provide the full range of available NHS dental care, for all active NHS patients. The provision of NHS dental care is provided by various Qualified Dentists/Clinicians here, all working within the NHS. There is no guarantee that you will continue to see the same Dentist, this may change without prior notice.

The NHS banding charges are set and governed by NHS England, not the practice. If you fail to return to complete any course of treatment, and/or you return after 2 months has passed from your date of your last visit. You will have to pay the current NHS charge band again for any further NHS dental treatment received.

Certain NHS treatments are guaranteed for 12 months from the date they were completed. Outside of this time the appropriate NHS banding charge will apply.

The practice has CCTV in operation at all times in the public areas, to keep all our Patients and Staff Safe.