We fully comply with Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations and have put in place numerous policies and protocols in order to ensure your safety. Audits are routinely performed looking at a number of different areas including patient satisfaction surveys and improvements are put in place where needed. This practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
• To provide a high quality and range of dental services to the whole community including consultations, X-rays, routine restorative work, endodontics, treatment of periodontal disease, prostheses, oral surgery including implants and cosmetic dentistry.
• To offer patients a friendly and professional service.
• In proposing treatment we will take account of your own wishes. We will explain options, where appropriate, and costs, so that you can make an informed choice. We will always explain what we are doing.
• To keep patients well informed of costs and to discuss treatment progress at each stage, obtaining relevant consent.
• To offer a preventative service.
• We screen all patients for mouth cancer at routine checkups. We ask patients about tobacco and alcohol use because they increase your oral cancer risk.
• All dentists, nurses and hygienists in the practice take part in continuing professional education, meeting the General Dental Council’s requirements. We aim to keep up-to-date with current thinking on all aspects of general dentistry, including preventive care which reduces your need for treatment.
• To establish an individually-developed personal dental health regime for each patient to meet the dental care needs and aim for a high level of oral health.
• At Walpole Street Dental Practice we do not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, gender, religion, disability, medical or dental status when making appointments to see patients.
• Contamination control is also essential to the safety of our patients. Every practice member receives training in practice systems for contamination control.

Cancellation policy

We may need to phone you to cancel or amend your appointment. Please ensure that we have your up-to-date mobile or other telephone number. Please tell us if you would like SMS text message reminders. Cancellations must be made with a minimum of 3 working days for regular dental appointments. 1 weeks notice is required for all surgical appointments – especially if sedation is required. A deposit of £500 will be taken for surgical appointments. We reserve the right to refuse further treatment to patients who fail to attend two consecutive appointments or any three out of five consecutive appointments.

Disability policy

Due to the listed building status of our practice we are limited in offering appointments to certain patients with disabilities. Please advise the practice manager if you are confined to a wheelchair – we will recommend a nearby dental surgery of similar stature that will be better able to serve your needs. Please inform our staff if you need any assistance getting into the practice – the doorway is reached via 3 steps.

Guide dogs

It would be most helpful if those patients with guide dogs could bring a friend along to sit in the waiting room with the dog whilst our dental nurse escorts the patient into, and back from, the surgery.

Patient Confidentiality

Patient Confidentiality at our practice is taken very seriously and all information about our patients is treated with the strictest confidence in accordance with our practice policy. This is in compliance with the Data Protection Act, and we will not disclose patient information without written permission from the patient. At The Walpole Street Practice the need for the strict confidentiality of personal information about patients is taken very seriously. All staff must follow the General Dental Council’s guidance Standards for Dental Professionals. Information may need to be disclosed to third party if you as a patient require referral to another practitioner to ensure the provision of care, this would only be done with your consent. There are circumstances in which a dentist may decide to disclose information to a third party or may be required to disclose by law. Responsibility for disclosure rests with the patient’s dentist and under no circumstances can any other member of staff make a decision to disclose.

Comments about our Service

At The Walpole Street Practice we take complaints very seriously because we want all our patients to be satisfied with our service. If a patient makes a complaint, it is important to us that this is dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our own complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from any mistake that we make and we respond to patients’ concerns in a caring and sensitive way. We have a practice complaints procedure in accordance with the General Dental Council and CQC and welcome any feedback. This policy sets out the procedures we will follow to ensure that we achieve these objectives. Please see our Complaints Procedure below.

Verbal Complaints:

• If a patient makes a verbal complaint, the member of staff they are speaking to will listen to the patient and, if they are able, immediately attempt to remedy the problem. If this is not possible, or if the patient is asking for something that the staff member is not authorised to provide (for example, a refund of treatment fees), the staff member should contact the Practice Director immediately so that he can deal with the matter.
• If the Practice Director is not available, the patient will be told when she will be and/or that arrangements will be made for her to contact them (and when this will happen). The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on to the Practice Director.
• If the patient is unhappy with this, or is not able or prepared to wait, then arrangements will be made for the dentist or other appropriate person to deal with the matter in the Practice Director’s absence.

Written Complaints:

• Written complaints, whether in a letter or an email, will be passed immediately to the Practice Director for her to deal with. Complaints relating to clinical care or associated charges will usually be referred to the dentist unless the patient does not want this to happen.
• We will acknowledge the patient’s complaint in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within three working days. We will provide a full response (with redress or details of action to be taken, where appropriate) within 28 practice working days. If this is not possible for any reason, we will notify the patient, giving reasons for the delay and the likely period within which the investigation will be completed.
• The full response may initially be given at a meeting or by telephone if the patient prefers and confirmed in writing.
• We will keep proper and comprehensive records of any complaints we receive, responses we give and any action taken.

Where a patient is not satisfied with the response to a complaint, they may refer the matter to:

1. The General Dental Council: 37 Wimpole Street, London, W1M 8DQ, (T) 0845 222 4141 – Dental Regulatory body, dealing with complaints about professional misconduct.
2. The Dental Complaints Service: The Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Road,Croydon, CR9 2ER, (T) 08456 120540- dealing with complaints regarding private treatment – The Walpole Street practice only provides treatment on a private basis.
3. The Care Quality Commission (CQC): Finsbury Tower, 103-105 Bunhill Row , London, EC1Y 8TG, (T) 03000 616161- General health regulator, maintaining standards in the healthcare service.

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