Complaints Procedure

Smiles & More are always striving to offer the best customer experience possible and as such, your feedback is very important to us. Should you feel the need to register a complaint with us for any reason via our complaints procedure, we would ask that you get in touch with either Samantha Moore, our Practice Manager or Gary Moore, the Principal Clinical Dental Technician via the following addresses:

• samantha@smilesandmore.co.uk
• gary@smilesandmore.co.uk

Please provide us with details of your issue and we will then endeavour to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction.

The procedure that you can expect Samantha and Gary to follow will be as follows:

• A member of staff is allocated to dealing with the query and this is who patients will be referred to when making a complaint face-to-face, by telephone or by email. Where this staff member is unavailable, a message should be passed on to them on their return with details of the situation, or where there is a long period of absence a substitute staff member should be selected. However, unless the patient has requested otherwise, complaints directly related to clinical care or associated charges should be referred to the clinical dental technician.
• The patient making the complaint should receive a written response within three working days of supplying the circumstances leading to the complaint and should be updated about the actions intended to be taken within ten working days.
• All complaints should be recorded and in circumstances where there is a delay to this response time, they should be informed as soon as possible. In order to handle the complaint sensitively, it may be necessary to deal with the patient over the telephone or make other arrangements at their request.
• The result of any complaint may be to offer reimbursement or a replacement to the customer, whether this be partial or full reimbursement, or work being redone with partial or no charge. Reimbursement or replacement is entirely at the discretion of the management team.

Following this procedure, if a patient remains displeased with the outcome then they should be referred to either of the following:

• For private dental treatment you can contact the GDC private dental complaints service within 12 months of the treatment or within 12 months of becoming aware of the issue by calling 020 8253 0800 or visiting dentalcomplaints.org.uk.
• The General Dental Council is responsible for regulating all dental professionals. You can complain using their online form at www.gdc-uk.org contact them on information@gdc-org.ukor by calling 020 7167 6000.