Our Practice Policies and Procedures

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you received from the dentist or any of our staff working in the practice, let us know, we operate a practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system adheres to the national criteria.

How to complain:

We hope that most problems can be easily and quickly resolved, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible - ideally, within a matter of days or few weeks.

Complaints should be put in writing to: The Practice manager, 10 The Parade, High Street, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD17 1AA.

Who will ensure that your concerns are dealt with promptly? It will be great help if you are specific with your complaint.

What shall we do?

We shall acknowledge your complaint within three working days. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation. Investigating your complaint, we shall aim to:

• Find out what happened and went wrong.
• Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate.
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.

Complaining on behalf of someone else:

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

If patients are not satisfied with the result of or procedure then a complaint may be referred to:

We hope, if you have a problem, you will use our practice procedure. We believe this will provide the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of the investigation.

Patients and liaison service. NHS North East London and city, Free post 1Y426, Becketts House, 2-14 Ilford Hill, IG1 2BR or Parliamentary and health service Ombudsman, Milbank Tower, Milbank London SWP1 4QP, Tel: 0345 015 4033 or www.ombudsman.org.uk for complaints about NHS treatment.

The Dental complaints service, The Lansdowne building, 2 Lansdowne Road, Croydon, Greater London CR9 2ER Tele: 0845 120 540 or www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk for complaints about private treatment.

The General dental Council, 37 Wimpole street London, W1M 8DQ the dentists’ registration body.