Failure to Attend / Short Notice Cancellation of NHS Appointments Policy

If you are unable to attend your appointment, please let us know as soon as possible.

If two or more NHS appointments are missed or cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice within a 12-month period, Clayton Dental Care reserves the right to remove you from our NHS patient list and we may no longer be able to provide NHS treatment.

In accordance with NHS regulations, we are unable to charge patients for missed NHS appointments.

Failure to Attend / Short Notice Cancellation of Private Appointments Policy

If you are a private patient and are unable to attend your appointment, please notify us as soon as possible.

Appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice, or appointments that are missed without notice, may be subject to a missed appointment charge. The current charge is £30 per missed appointment.

Open Course of NHS Treatment Policy

If you do not complete your NHS course of treatment and more than four weeks have passed since your last appointment without any further appointments being arranged, your course of treatment will be considered complete.

Once a course of treatment has been closed, it will be submitted to the NHS.

Should you wish to continue treatment at a later date, a new examination may be required and additional NHS charges may apply.

Open Course of Private Treatment Policy

Private treatment quotations are valid for six weeks from the date of your assessment.

If treatment has not commenced within this period, your dentist may need to reassess your oral health and provide an updated treatment plan and quotation.

Abuse or Aggressive Behaviour Policy

Clayton Dental Care is committed to providing a safe and respectful environment for both patients and staff.

We operate a Zero Tolerance Policy towards abusive, threatening, aggressive or violent behaviour.

Any patient who shouts, uses abusive language, threatens or behaves aggressively towards members of our team may be asked to leave the Practice immediately and may be refused future treatment.

Complaints Policy

At Clayton Dental Care, we take complaints seriously and are committed to resolving concerns fairly, promptly and professionally. We aim to provide every patient with excellent care and service, and we welcome feedback to help us continually improve.

Our Procedure

1. The Practice Manager is responsible for handling complaints relating to the services provided by Clayton Dental Care.

2. If you wish to raise a complaint in person or by telephone, a member of our team will listen carefully and, where possible, refer your concern to the Practice Manager immediately. If they are unavailable, arrangements will be made for them to contact you as soon as possible.

3. Complaints submitted in writing or by email should be sent to clayton.dentalpractice@nhs.net and will be forwarded directly to the Practice Manager.

4. Where a complaint relates to clinical treatment or treatment fees, it will normally be referred to the dentist who provided the treatment.

5. We will acknowledge your complaint in writing, usually within two working days, and begin a full investigation. We aim to complete our investigation within 14 days. If this is not possible, we will keep you informed of the reason for the delay and provide an expected timescale for completion.

6. Once our investigation has concluded, we will write to you explaining our findings and any action we propose to take.

7. A confidential record of all complaints and their outcomes will be maintained in accordance with our complaints procedure.

8. If you remain dissatisfied after completing our internal complaints process, you may refer your complaint to the appropriate organisation depending on whether your treatment was provided under the NHS or privately.

NHS Complaints

You may contact the NHS Complaints Service or the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman if your complaint relates to NHS dental treatment.

Private Complaints

Dental Complaints Service
Stephenson House, 2 Cherry, Orchard Road, Croydon, CR0 6BA

Telephone: 020 8253 0800
Website: www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk

Contact Details

Clayton Dental Care

1 Cambridge Street, Clayton, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD14 6RH

Telephone: 01274 880143
Email: clayton.dentalpractice@nhs.net