Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentist or any of the staff working at Graystone Referral Centre, please let us know.

We operate a practice complaints procedure for dealing with complaints and we take each and every complaint seriously. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

How to complain

We hope that most problems can be resolved easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would encourage you to raise this as soon as you are able to in order to allow us to establish what happened more easily.

Complaints should be addressed to our Complaints Manager Arijit Ray-Chaudhuri or our Deputy Complaints Manager, Sarah Robinson. You may ask for a scheduled time to meet in person in order to discuss your concerns.

We will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.

It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible and provide as much detail as you are able about your complaint. You may also raise concerns in person or via the telephone. If you wish to raise your concern or complaint in this way, our team will listen to your concern and take down notes so that it can be investigated fully.

The complaints procedure is entirely confidential and will not affect your ongoing care. However, if it is in your best interest to make a fresh start with a new dental professional, or you ask for this, this is also an option.

The complaint correspondence is filed separately from your clinical records, and we can assure you the whole procedure is entirely confidential. Only those members of the practice staff who need to will know about your complaint.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to investigate your complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you a helpful detailed written explanation, or a meeting with the people involved if you would like this.

When we investigate your complaint, we shall aim to:

• Find out what happened and what went wrong
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
• Make sure you receive an apology where this is appropriate
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again
• Ensure our practice team learns from each and every complaint and concern

Should you wish to make a complaint, we may need to provide information about you and the treatment you have received, to insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisers.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly 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.

If you are complaining on behalf of someone under 16, we will need to know that you have parental responsibility for them, or will need signed authority from somebody with parental responsibility for you to act on their behalf.

Complaining to Dental Complaints Service

If you are not satisfied with our initial response, please let us know so we can try to resolve any outstanding issues. We will make every reasonable effort to find a mutually acceptable resolution.

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will make use of our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will provide the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. However, this does not affect your right to complain to an independent body. You may do this if you feel that you cannot raise your complaint with Graystone Referral Centre directly or if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

For further advice, you should contact:

Dental Complaints Service

37 Wimpole Street,

London,

W1G 8DQ

Website: https://dcs.gdc-uk.org

Telephone: 020 8253 0800

(Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm)

Or

General Dental Council

37 Wimpole Street

London

W1G 8DQ

Website: www.gdc-uk.org

Telephone: 0845 222 4141 or 020 7887 3800