Dental Complaints Procedure

Last updated: 26 August 2026

At Sevenoaks Dental & Implant Centre, we take feedback and complaints seriously. We welcome feedback because it helps us understand our patients’ experiences and identify where we can improve our services.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of your care, treatment or experience at the practice, please tell us. We will listen to your concerns, investigate them appropriately and respond as fairly and promptly as possible.

1. What Can I Complain About?

You can raise a concern or complaint about any aspect of your experience with the practice, including:

The dental treatment you received
The standard of care provided
Communication with the dental team
Appointments and waiting times
Fees, payments or estimates
Reception or administrative services
Information provided to you
Accessibility or reasonable adjustments
Concerns about how your personal information has been handled
Other concerns about the service provided by the practice

You do not need to use the word “complaint” when raising a concern. If you are dissatisfied with something and would like us to respond, we will treat your concern appropriately.

2. How to Raise a Concern

If possible, we encourage you to raise your concern with the practice as soon as you become aware of the problem.

Some concerns can be resolved quickly by speaking with a member of the practice team.

If the matter cannot be resolved informally, or if you would prefer to make a formal complaint, you can contact us using the details below.

Sevenoaks Dental & Implant Centre
128 High Street
Sevenoaks
Kent
TN13 1XA

Telephone: 01732 600 111
Email: info@sevenoaks-dental.co.uk

You can make a complaint verbally, by telephone, in writing or by email.

3. Who Should I Address My Complaint To?

You can ask to speak to a member of the practice management team or one of the people responsible for handling complaints.

Complaints contacts: Dr Saira Akhtar Gill / Dr Mohsin Uddin

If you would prefer not to raise your complaint with the person directly involved in your care, please tell us and we will make appropriate arrangements for your complaint to be handled by someone else where reasonably practicable.

4. What Information Should I Include?

To help us investigate your complaint, please provide as much relevant information as you can.

This may include:

Your name and contact details
The patient’s name if you are complaining on behalf of someone else
The date or approximate date of the incident
The name of the dentist or member of staff involved, if known
A description of what happened
What you believe went wrong
Any relevant correspondence or documents
What you would like us to do to resolve the matter, where applicable

Please do not send unnecessary confidential medical information by ordinary email. We may advise you of a more appropriate method for providing sensitive information.

5. Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else

If you are making a complaint on behalf of another patient, we will normally need that person’s permission before discussing their confidential information with you.

This is because dental and health information is confidential.

There may be circumstances where someone can complain on behalf of another person without their consent, for example where the patient is unable to provide consent or where another legal basis applies.

If you are unsure, please contact the practice and we will explain what information or authority may be required.

6. What Happens After We Receive Your Complaint?

We will acknowledge your complaint and, where appropriate, discuss how we intend to investigate it.

For NHS complaints, current NHS guidance provides for acknowledgement and an offer of discussion about how the complaint will be handled within three working days of receipt. The timescale for the final response depends on the nature and complexity of the complaint.

For private complaints, we will handle the complaint in accordance with our practice complaints procedure and the applicable requirements.

7. How We Investigate Complaints

We will investigate complaints fairly and appropriately.

Depending on the nature of the complaint, this may involve:

Reviewing your dental records
Reviewing relevant correspondence
Speaking with members of the dental team
Reviewing appointment or administrative records
Discussing the matter with the dentist involved
Considering relevant clinical or practice procedures
Identifying opportunities to improve our service

We will aim to establish what happened, understand your concerns and identify an appropriate response.

8. Meeting to Discuss Your Complaint

Where appropriate, we may offer a meeting or telephone discussion to help us understand your concerns and explain the outcome of our investigation.

You can tell us if you require reasonable adjustments or additional support to participate in the complaints process.

9. Our Response

Our response will explain the outcome of our investigation and, where appropriate:

What we found
What action has been taken
Any learning identified
Any changes we intend to make
Any further information relevant to your complaint

Where we identify that something went wrong, we will consider what can be done to put matters right and reduce the risk of the problem happening again.

10. If You Are Not Satisfied With Our Response

If you remain dissatisfied after we have completed our complaints process, the next step depends on whether your treatment was provided under the NHS or privately.

11. Complaints About NHS Dental Treatment

If your complaint relates to NHS dental treatment in England, you can raise the complaint with the practice or, where appropriate, the organisation responsible for commissioning the NHS dental service.

For most NHS dental services in England, this is your local Integrated Care Board (ICB).

The NHS Business Services Authority advises patients who wish to complain about an NHS dental practice in England to raise the complaint with the practice first, or contact their local ICB if they prefer not to complain directly to the practice.

Find your local Integrated Care Board (ICB)

12. NHS Ombudsman

If you remain dissatisfied after following the relevant NHS complaints process, you may be able to ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to consider your complaint.

The Ombudsman provides an independent service for unresolved complaints about NHS services in England.

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Telephone: 0345 015 4033

The Ombudsman normally expects you to have given the relevant organisation an opportunity to respond to your complaint before contacting it.

13. Complaints About Private Dental Treatment

If your complaint relates to private dental care and you are unable to resolve the matter directly with the practice, you may be able to contact the Dental Complaints Service (DCS).

The Dental Complaints Service provides free and impartial advice and support for complaints about private dental care in the UK.

The Dental Complaints Service does not handle complaints about NHS dentistry.

Dental Complaints Service

The DCS can advise you about whether it can assist with your particular complaint and explain the next steps.

14. General Dental Council

The General Dental Council (GDC) regulates dental professionals in the United Kingdom.

The GDC is not normally the organisation that investigates individual complaints about the standard of service or treatment provided by a dental practice. However, the GDC can consider concerns about the fitness to practise or professional conduct of individual dental professionals.

General Dental Council – Concerns

15. Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates health and social care services in England.

The CQC does not normally resolve individual patient complaints or act as an ombudsman. However, you can provide information to the CQC about your experience, which may help it identify concerns about a registered provider.

Care Quality Commission – Report a concern

16. Confidentiality

Complaints will be handled confidentially and information will only be shared with people who need it for the purpose of investigating and responding to the complaint, or where disclosure is otherwise legally or professionally required.

If you complain on behalf of another patient, we may need their consent before discussing confidential clinical information with you.

17. Reasonable Adjustments

We want our complaints process to be accessible to everyone.

If you have a disability, communication difficulty or other requirement that makes it difficult for you to use our standard complaints process, please tell us.

Where reasonably practicable, we will consider appropriate adjustments to help you raise and discuss your complaint.

18. Support With Making a Complaint

You may ask a trusted person, friend, family member, advocate or other representative to support you with your complaint.

If someone is making a complaint on your behalf, we may need appropriate authority or consent before discussing confidential patient information with them.

For NHS complaints, independent NHS complaints advocacy may also be available. Your local Healthwatch can help you find information about advocacy services in your area.

19. Learning From Complaints

Complaints provide an opportunity for the practice to learn and improve.

Where appropriate, complaints may be reviewed as part of practice management and quality-improvement activities.

We will protect patient confidentiality when discussing complaints internally and will avoid unnecessarily identifying individual patients.

20. Anonymous Complaints

We may consider anonymous complaints where sufficient information is provided to allow us to understand and investigate the concern.

However, if we do not have contact details, we may be unable to provide an individual response or request additional information.

21. Unreasonable or Persistent Complaints

We aim to respond to all genuine complaints fairly and respectfully.

In exceptional circumstances, where correspondence or behaviour becomes abusive, threatening, discriminatory or unreasonably persistent, we may need to put reasonable arrangements in place for future communication.

Any such arrangements will be proportionate to the circumstances and will not prevent a patient from raising a genuine concern.

22. Complaints About Data Protection

If your concern specifically relates to how we have collected, used, stored or disclosed your personal information, please contact us so that we can investigate the matter.

Further information is available in our Privacy Policy and Data Protection Policy.

If you remain dissatisfied, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Information Commissioner’s Office – Make a complaint

23. Contact Details

If you have a concern or complaint, please contact: