How to raise a concern with The Smile Suite, what happens next, and who to contact if you're not satisfied with our response.
At The Smile Suite, we would like our service to meet your expectations. If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the dentist or any of the staff working at our practice, please let us know. We take complaints seriously and are always keen to be informed of any mistakes made and how we can learn from them. We will respond to your concerns in a caring and sensitive way, and we will always endeavour to continue to improve the service and patient care we provide.
Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our own concerns about a service to be handled. We will do our best to deal with any complaints courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible.
Dr Fawzia Walji is our Complaints Manager. If you wish to make a complaint or let us know how we could have done better, please get in touch using any of the methods below.
If the Complaints Manager is unavailable, and the matter requires a more immediate response, we will arrange for a senior member of the dental team to deal with it. We will listen to your concerns and our staff members may take some brief details of the complaint to pass on to the Complaints Manager, so that any useful information can be gathered before contacting you.
If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges it will normally be referred to the dentist concerned, unless the patient does not want this to happen.
We will acknowledge all complaints in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as soon as possible, normally within three working days.
We will offer to discuss the issue with you via the communication methods you prefer, and let you know how we will manage your complaint and the likely duration of the investigation.
We will seek to investigate the complaint within fourteen working days and keep you informed on how our investigation is progressing. We will notify you of any delays and the likely period within which the investigation will be completed.
We shall confirm the decision about the complaint in writing immediately after completing our investigation, unless you have told us that you do not wish for further communication. The report will explain how we investigated the complaint, the conclusions we reached for each part of your complaint, details of any remedial action we have taken, and whether further action is needed.
Proper and comprehensive records are kept of every complaint received, as well as any actions taken to improve services as a consequence of a complaint. These records are regularly reviewed so as to ensure an ongoing improvement to our services.
If you are not satisfied with the results of our procedure, you will be able to contact a relevant external organisation. One such organisation includes: