Complaints Policy

We try to ensure that all our patients are pleased with their experience of our services. We welcome feedback from patients and take any complaints seriously. We aim to deal with any complaints courteously and efficiently so that they can be resolved as quickly as possible.

How to complain

We hope that most issues can be resolved easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your issues cannot be sorted out this way and you wish to make a complaint, you can do so verbally by speaking to one of our team members, who will direct you to our complaints lead, or you can write to us by letter or email.

Complaints made verbally

If you wish to make a complaint over the phone or in person, we will listen to your complaint and offer to refer you to our complaints lead. If they are unavailable, the staff member will take your details and a brief explanation of the complaint to pass on. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days.

Complaints made via email or letter

Any letters or emails regarding a complaint will be immediately passed to our complaints lead. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days.

Investigations

We will contact you to discuss your complaint unless it can be resolved easily. Any complaints involving clinical care will be referred to the treating dentist unless you request this not to happen.

We will then investigate your complaint and will aim to have a response for you within 10 working days. If it is not possible to resolve this within that timeframe, we will inform you and let you know when it is likely to be resolved. 

Once we have made a decision regarding your complaint we will inform you by your preferred contact method.

It is possible that if a complaint regards clinical care or is complex, we may need to seek advice from our insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisors and, therefore, may need to share some of your

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we strictly adhere to the rules of clinical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we must know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed unless they are incapable (because of physical and mental illness) of providing this.

Time Limits for opening complaints

Complaints should be made within 12 months of the incident or when the complainant first discovered the problem.

Complaining to NHS England

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. This does not affect your right to approach the NHS England if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us, or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

  • Fulfil our obligations under any contract we have entered into with you or with a Patient you represent, and to provide you or the relevant Patient with information or services you or the Patient has requested
  • Send you newsletters and marketing information if you have consented to us doing so
  • Notify you of products and services we feel may interest you, or permit third parties to do so if you have provided the appropriate consent
  • Monitor website usage and provide statistics to third parties for the purposes of improving and developing the website and the services we provide via the website

Should you wish to make a direct complaint to NHS England please contact:

Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), complaints and compliments
Telephone: 0800 026 6082
Email: contactus@swlondon.nhs.uk

If you feel unable to raise your concerns with the practice, you can contact the ICB. However, the ICB cannot re-investigate complaints already made to the practice, so if you feel unhappy with how the practice or the ICB has handled a complaint, you should contact the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

  • Dental Complaints Service
  • 37 Wimpole Street
  • London
  • W1G 8DQ
  • Telephone: 020 8253 0800
  • (Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm)

Complaints and the CQC

The CQC don't get directly involved with complaints made to the practice. They do, however, encourage giving feedback for service providers.

To send feedback to the CQC about please go to:
https://www.cqc.org.uk/give-feedback-on-care or Telephone: 03000 616161 Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm Excluding bank holidays.

The NHS: If you would rather not go directly to your practice and your treatment is provided by the NHS, you can contact your local ICB, which is responsible for NHS dental services.

The latest approved version of this document supersedes all other versions, upon receipt of the latest approved version all other versions should be destroyed, unless specifically stated that previous version(s) are to remain extant. If in any doubt, please contact the document Author.

Approved By: Liliane Coco Stedile, Brijal Patel, Dipen Patel
Date Published: 14/07/2025