Patient Complaint Leaflet

We regularly review the way we provide services that are offered to our patients. To do this effectively, we need to know your views about Dentalondon. We want to know what you think we do well, where we have not met your needs, and encourage you to put forward any ideas and suggestions you may have to improve the service.

Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint about any aspect of Dentalondon, please let us know as soon as possible. Please be assured that making a complaint will not have an adverse effect on your registration, care, treatment or support.

How to Complain
In the first instance, please discuss your complaint with a member of staff. Where the issue cannot be resolved immediately, please contact the Practice Manager who will try to resolve the issue and offer you further advice on our complaint procedure. If your problem cannot be resolved and you wish to make a formal complaint please let us know as soon as possible, ideally within a matter of days by making contact with the complaints manager. It is ideal to have the information in writing, giving as much detail as you can, as this will enable us to get a clear picture of the circumstances of the complaint.

You can contact us in the following ways:

• Through our website by completing our Complaints Form
• By emailing: info@dentalondon.co.uk
• By post
• You can fill in a copy of our Complaints Form at Reception.

If you are making a complaint on behalf of someone else, we need to know that you have their permission to do so in order to ensure we maintain patient confidentiality. A note signed by the person concerned will be required, unless they are incapable of providing this due to illness or disability.

All complaints should normally be made within 12 months of the date of the event complained about. The time limit can be waived if you give good reasons for missing it and the complaints manager decides a fair investigation is possible.

We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days.

Next Steps
We treat all complaints seriously and aim to resolve them as quickly and fully as we can. We will acknowledge receipt within three working days, and aim to resolve the matter as soon as possible. You will then receive a formal reply in writing and we will offer to meet with you to discuss your complaint,agree with you how your complaint will be fully investigated and let you know when this will be completed within 20 working days. When we investigate your complaint we aim to:

• Establish the full circumstances of your complaint
• Make arrangements for you to discuss the problem with whoever is concerned, if possible
• Offer an apology, where this is appropriate
• Identify what we could do to prevent the problem occurring again

Not Happy With The Response?
Let us know if you are not happy with our response within 6 months. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 days and escalated to the internal complaint review to conduct an objective review of the complaint which will be done by one of the dentists or the registered manager, who has not been involved in handling of the complaint previously.

We will provide a full response on the outcome of the internal review within 20 working days or, where the investigation is still in progress, send a letter explaining the reason for the delay to the complainant, at a minimum, every 20 working days, aiming to complete the review within 3 months.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal complaint review and feel that we have not met any of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 regulations, you can escalate your complaint to Independent External Adjudication within six months of the internal complaint review response;

The external complaint can be made through:

• Post: DCS 37 Wimpole Street London W1G 8DQ
• Tel: 020 8253 0800
• Email: info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk
• Website: https://dcs.gdc-uk.org

Also, any concerns can be reported to the Care Quality Commission at https://www.cqc.org.uk

Dentalondon Complaints Lead is: Nurten Cetin