We want our service to meet your expectations. If you have a concern or complaint about
any aspect of our service, we want to know what mistakes we made and identify how we can
improve to ensure that we meet your expectations in future. Our aim is to learn from any
feedback we receive and improve the service we provide to our patients.
We will deal with complaints courteously and promptly and aim to resolve the matter as
quickly as possible.

Making a complaint
If you wish to make a complaint or simply let us know how we could have done better,
please contact John Nicoll (Complaints Manager):
 By telephone on 01768 867399
 By email to john@nicollsdental.org.uk
 By letter to Mr.J.Nicoll. Nicolls Dental Practice, The Old Observer House, Rowcliffe Lane, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 7BA
 In person at the practice

The Complaints Manager usually works at the practice on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursday
and Fridays 9.30 am – 4.30 pm and will endeavour to be available during these times. You
may find it more convenient to make an appointment with Complaints Manager to ensure
that he can dedicate sufficient time to meet with you.

If you contact the practice to make a complaint and the Complaints Manager is not
available, we will arrange a convenient time for them to contact you. We will ask you for brief
details of your complaint so that the Complaints Manager can gather any useful information
before contacting you. You will be given a copy of the notes made for the Complaints
Manager.

If the matter requires a more immediate response, we will arrange for a senior member of
the dental team to deal with it.
If your complaint is about your dental treatment or the fee charged, we will usually ask the
dentist concerned to contact you, unless you do not want this.
We acknowledge all complaints in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice as
soon as possible, normally within 3 working days;
Investigating a complaint
We will offer to discuss the complaint with you and will ask how you would like to be kept
informed of developments – by telephone, letters or e-mail or by face-to-face meetings. We
will let you know how we will deal with your complaint and the likely time that the
investigation will take to complete. If you do not wish to discuss the complaint further, we will
still let you know the expected timescale for completing the investigation.
We will investigate your complaint promptly or, if the issue is complex, within 6 months; and,
as far as reasonably practicable, will let you know how our investigation is progressing.

When we have completed our investigation, we will provide you with a full written report,
unless you have told us that you do not wish for further communication. The report will
explain how we considered 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.

Records
We keep proper and comprehensive records of any complaints that we receive and the
action we have taken following investigation. We review these records regularly to ensure
that we recognise our mistakes and take every opportunity to improve our service.

Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else
Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are complaining on
behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have the permission to do so. A note
signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless that are incapable of providing this
because of physical or mental illness or are a child under 16 years.

If you are not satisfied
If your complaint was about your dental treatment and you are not satisfied with the result of
our investigation, you can take up the matter with a relevant external organisation.

For complaints about private treatment:
Dental Complaints Service, 37 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8DQ
(020 8253 0800 or online at https://contactus.gdc-uk.org/dcs/Complaint/PrivatePatients

For patients with a Practice Plan Membership:
Practice Plan Ltd, Cambrian Works, Gobowen Road, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY11 1HS
Email: info@practiceplan.co.uk
Tel: 01691684120